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For my Mom, the MonKon
1
I think you’re the one I spoke to on the phone, the librarian with a voice so soft
that I went out and bought myself a cashmere sweater. Warm. Safe. You called
me three days ago to confirm my new job at the Bainbridge Public Library. The
call was meant to be short. Perfunctory. You: Mary Kay DiMarco, branch
manager. Me: Joe Goldberg, volunteer. But there was chemistry. We had a
couple laughs. That lilt in your voice got under my skin and I wanted to google
you, but I didn’t. Women can tell when a guy knows too much and I wanted to
come in cool. I’m early and you’re hot—if that’s you, is that you?—and you’re
busy with a male patron—I smell mothballs and gin—and you’re foxy but
subdued, showing off your legs as you hide them in opaque black tights, as
concealing as RIP Beck’s curtain-less windows were revealing. You raise your
voice—you want the old man to try out some Haruki Murakami—and I’m sure
of it now. You’re the one from the phone but holy shit, Mary Kay.
Are you the one for me?
I know. You’re not an object, blah, blah, blah. And I could be “projecting.” I
barely know you and I’ve been through hell. I was detained in jail for several
months of my life. I lost my son. I lost the mother of my son. It’s a miracle I’m
not dead and I want to talk to you right fucking now but I do the patient thing
and walk away. Your picture is on the wall by the lobby and the placard is final,
confirmation. You are Mary Kay DiMarco, and you’ve worked in this library for
sixteen years. You have a master’s in library science. I feel new. Powerless. But
then you clear your throat—I’m not without power—and I turn and you make a
peace sign and smile at me. Two minutes. I smile right back at you. Take your
time.
I know what you’re thinking—What a nice guy, so patient—and for the first
time in months, I’m not annoyed at having to go out of my fucking way to be
nice, and patient. See, I don’t have a choice anymore. I have to be Mr. Fucking
Good Guy. It’s the only way to ensure that I never fall prey to the American
Injustice System ever again. I bet you don’t have experience with the AIJ. I, on
the other hand, know all about the rigged game of Monopoly. I used my Get
Out of Jail Free card—thanks, rich Quinns!—but I was also naïve—fuck off, rich
Quinns—and I’ll wait for you all day long because if even one person in this
library perceived me as a threat… Well, I won’t take any chances.
I play humble for you—I do not check my phone—and I watch you scratch
your leg. You knew that you’d meet me in real life today and did you buy that
skirt for me? Possibly. You’re older than me, bolder than me, like high school
girls to my eighth-grade boy and I see you in the nineties, trotting off the cover
of Sassy magazine. You kept going, marching through time, waiting and not
waiting for a good man to come along. And here I am now—our timing is right
—and the Mothball is “reading” the Murakami and you glance at me—See what I
did there?—and I nod.
Yes, Mary Kay. I see you.
You’re Mother of Books, stiff as a robot in a French maid costume—your
skirt really is a little short—and you clutch your elbows while the Mothball
turns pages as if you work on commission, as if you need him to borrow that
book. You care about books and I belong in here with you and your pronounced
knuckles. You’re a librarian, a superior to my bookseller and the Mothball
doesn’t have to whip out a credit card, and oh that’s right. There are good things
about America. I forgot about the Dewey Fucking Decimal System and Dewey
was known to be toxic, but look what he did for this country!
The old man pats his Murakami. “Okay, doll, I’ll let you know what I think.”
You flash a smile—you like to be called “doll”—and you shudder. You feel
guilty about not feeling outraged. You’re part doll and part ladyboss and you’re a
reader. A thinker. You see both sides. You make another peace sign at me—two
more minutes—and you show off for me some more. You tell a mommy that her
baby is cute—eh, not really—and everyone loves you, don’t they? You with your
high messy bun that wants to be a ponytail and your sartorial protest against
the other librarians in their sack shirts, their slacks, you’d think they’d be put
off by you but they’re not. You say yeah a lot and I’m pretty sure that a wise
Diane Keaton mated with a daffy Diane Keaton, that they made you for me. I
adjust my pants—Gently, Joseph—and I donated one hundred thousand dollars to
this library to get this volunteer gig and you can ask the state of California or
the barista at Pegasus or my neighbor, whose dog shit on my lawn again this
morning, and they’ll all tell you the same thing.
I am a good fucking person.
It’s a matter of legal fact. I didn’t kill RIP Guinevere Beck and I didn’t kill
RIP Peach Salinger. I’ve learned my lesson. When people bring out the worst in
me, I run. RIP Beck could have run—I was no good for her either, she wasn’t
mature enough for love—but she stayed, like the hapless, underwritten, self-
destructive female in a horror movie that she was and I was no better. I should
have cut the cord with her the day I met RIP Peach. I should have dumped Love
when I met her sociopath brother.
A teenage girl zooms into the library and she bumps into me and knocks me
back into the present—no apology—and she’s fast as a meerkat and you bark at
her. “No Columbine, Nomi. I mean it.”
Ah, so the Meerkat is your daughter and her glasses are too small for her face
and she probably wears them because you told her they’re no good. She’s
defiant. More like a feisty toddler than a surly teenager and she lugs a big white
copy of Columbine out of her backpack. She flips you the bird and you flip her
the bird and your family is fun. Is there a ring on your finger?
No, Mary Kay. There isn’t.
You reach for the Meerkat’s Columbine and she storms outside and you follow
her out the door—it’s an unplanned intermission—and I remember what you
told me on our phone call.
Your mom was a Mary Kay lady, cutthroat and competitive. You grew up on
the floors of various living rooms in Phoenix playing with Barbie dolls, watching
her coax women with cheating husbands into buying lipstick that might incite
their dirtbag husbands to stay home. As if lipstick can save a marriage. Your
mother was good at her job, she drove a pink Cadillac, but then your parents
split. You and your mother moved to Bainbridge and she did a one-eighty,
started selling Patagonia instead of Pan-Cake makeup. You said she passed away
three years ago and then you took a deep breath and said, “Okay, that was TMI.”
But it wasn’t too much, not at all, and you told me more: Your favorite place
on the island is Fort Ward and you like the bunkers and you mentioned graffiti.
God kills everyone. I told you that’s true and you wanted to know where I’m from
and I told you that I grew up in New York and you liked that and I told you I
did time in L.A. and you thought I was being facetious and who was I to correct
you?
The door opens and now you’re back. In the flesh and the skirt. Whatever
you said to your Meerkat pissed her off and she grabs a chair and moves it so
that it faces a wall and finally you come to me, warm and soft as the cashmere
on my chest. “Sorry for all the drama,” you say, as if you didn’t want me to see
everything. “You’re Joe, yeah? I think we spoke on the phone.”
You don’t think. You know. Yeah. But you didn’t know you’d want to tear my
clothes off and you shake my hand, skin on skin, and I breathe you in—you
smell like Florida—and the power inside of my body is restored. Zing.
You look at me now. “Can I have my hand back?”
I held on too long. “Sorry.”
“Oh no,” you say, and you lean in, closer as in the movie Closer. “I’m the one
who’s sorry. I ate an orange outside and my hands are a little sticky.”
I sniff my palm and I lean in. “Are you sure it wasn’t a tangerine?”
You laugh at my joke and smile. “Let’s not tell the others.”
Already it’s us against them and I ask if you finished the Lisa Taddeo—I am a
good guy and good guys remember the shit the girl said on the phone—and yes
you did finish and you loved it and I ask you if I can ask you about your
daughter and her Columbine and you blush. “Yeah,” you say. Yeah. “Well, as you
saw… she’s a little obsessed with Dylan Klebold.”
“The school shooter?”
“Oh God, no,” you say. “See, according to my daughter, he was a poet, which
is why it’s okay for her to write her college essay about him…”
“Okay, that’s a bad idea.”
“Obviously. I say that and she calls me a ‘hypocrite’ because I got in trouble
for writing about Ann Petry instead of Jane Austen when I was her age…” You
like me so much you are name-dropping. “I can’t remember…” Yes you can. “Did
you say if you have kids?”
Stephen King doesn’t have to murder people to describe death and you don’t
have to have kids to understand being a parent and technically I have a kid, but
I don’t “have” him. I don’t get to wear him like all the khaki fucking dads on this
rock. I shake my head no and your eyes sparkle. You hope I’m free and you want
us to have things in common so I steer us back to books. “Also, I love Ann Petry.
The Street is one of my all-time favorite books.”
You’re supposed to be impressed but a lot of book people know The Street
and you’re a fox. Reserved. I double down and tell you that I wish more people
would read The Narrows and that gets a smile—fuck yes—but we’re in the
workplace so you put your hands on your keypad. You furrow your brow. No
Botox for you. “Huh.” Something bumped you on the computer and do you
know about me? Did they flag me?
Play it cool, Joe. Exonerated. Innocent. “Am I fired already?”
“Well, no, but I do see an inconsistency in your file…”
You don’t know about the money I donated to this library because I insisted
on anonymity and the woman on the board swore that she would spare me the
nuisance of a background check, but did she lie to me? Did you find Dr. Nicky’s
conspiracy theory blog? Did the lady on the board realize I’m that Joe Goldberg?
Did she hear about me on some murder-obsessed woman’s fucking podcast?
You wave me over and the inconsistency is my list of favorite authors—phew
—and you tsk-tsk in a whisper. “I don’t see Debbie Macomber on this list, Mr.
Goldberg.”
I blush. The other day on the phone I told you that I got the idea to move to
the Pacific Northwest from Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Fucking Cove books and
you laughed—Really?—and I stood my soft, picket fenced-in ground. I’m not a
dictator. I didn’t command you to read one of her books. But I did say that
Debbie helped me, that reading about pious, justice-seeking Judge Olivia
Lockhart and her local newsie boyfriend Jack restored my faith in our world.
You did say you’d check ’em out but that’s what all people say when you
recommend a book or a fucking TV show and now here you are, winking at me.
You wink at me. Your hair is red and yellow. Your hair is fire. “Don’t fret,
Joe. I’ll eat the beef and you eat the broccoli. No one has to know.”
“Ah,” I say, because the beef and the broccoli are a reference to the show.
“Sounds like someone went to Cedar Cove to check it out.”
Your fingertips hit the keypad and the keypad is my heart. “Well I told you I
would…” You’re a woman of your word. “And you were right…” BINGO. “It is a
nice ‘antidote to the hellspace reality of the world right now’…” That’s me.
You’re quoting me. “All the bicycles and the fight for equity, it kinda lowers
your blood pressure.”
On you go about the pros and cons of escapism—you learned my language
and you want me to know it—you are sexy, confident—and I forgot about
sexual tension. Beginnings. “Well,” I say. “Maybe we can start a fan club.”
“Yeah…” you say. “But first you’ll have to tell me what got you into it…”
You women always want to know about the past but the past is over. Gone. I
can’t fucking tell you that Cedar Cove helped me survive my time in prison. I
won’t tell you that it was my Mayberry-scented salve while I was wrongly
incarcerated and I shouldn’t have to spill the details. We all go through periods
when we feel trapped, caged. It doesn’t matter where you suffer. I shrug.
“There’s no big story…” Ha! “A few months ago, I hit a rough patch…” Fact: The
best prison reads are “beach reads.” “Debbie was there for me…”… when Love
Quinn wasn’t.
You don’t badger me for details—I knew you were smart—and say you know
the feeling and you and I are the same, sensitive. “Well, I don’t want to bring you
down, but I must warn you, Joe…” You want to protect me. “This isn’t Cedar
Cove, not by a long shot.”
I like your spunk—you want to spar—and I tilt my head toward the empty
table where you stood with that old man. “Tell that to the Mothball who just
went home with the Murakami you suggested. Now that was very Cedar Cove.
You know I’m right and you try to smirk but your smirk is a smile. “We’ll see
how you feel after you’ve made it through a couple winters.” You blush. “What’s
in the bag?”
I give you my best smile, the one I never thought I’d use again. “Lunch,” I say.
“And unlike Judge Olivia Lockhart, I brought a ton of food. You can eat the
broccoli and the beef.”
I said that out loud—FUCK YOU, RUSTY BRAIN—and you get to hide in
your computer while I stand here being the guy who just told you that you can
eat my beef.
But you don’t torture me for long. “Okay,” you say. “The computer’s acting
up. We’ll take care of your badge later.”
The computer has some fucking nerve or maybe you’re testing me. You’re
leading me toward the break room and you ask if I went to Sawan or Sawadty.
When I say Sawan your Meerkat looks up from her Columbine and makes a barf
signal. “Eew. That’s so gross.”
No, kid, being rude is gross. She raves about Sawadty and you side with her
and I don’t speak your language. Not right now. You put a hand on my back—
nice—and then you put a hand on the Meerkat’s shoulder—you’re bringing us
together—and you tell me that I have a lot to learn about Bainbridge. “Nomi’s
extreme, but there are two kinds of people here, Joe. There are those who go to
Sawan and those of us who go to Sawadty.”
You fold your arms and are you really that petty? “Okay,” I say. “But doesn’t
the same family own both restaurants?”
The Meerkat groans and puts on her headphones—rude again—and you wave
me into the kitchen. “Well, yeah,” you say. “But the food’s a little different at
both of them.” You open the fridge and I stash my lunch and you’re being
irrational but you know it. “Oh come on. Isn’t this small-town quirk what you
wanted when you moved here?”
“Holy shit,” I say. “I live here.”
You rest your hands on my shoulders and it’s like you’ve never been to a
sexual harassment seminar. “Don’t worry, Joe. Seattle is only thirty-five minutes
away.”
I want to kiss you and you take your hands away and we leave the break
room and I tell you that I didn’t move here to take the ferry to the city. You
peer at me. “Why did you move here? Seriously. New York… L.A.… Bainbridge…
I’m genuinely curious.”
You are testing me. Demanding more of me. “Well, I joke about Cedar Cove…
“Yeah you do…”
“But I guess it just felt right to me. New York used to be like a Richard
Scarry book.”
“Love him.”
“But it lost that Scarry feeling. Maybe it was Citi Bikes…” Or all those dead
girls. “L.A. is just somewhere I went because that’s what people do. They go
from New York to L.A.” It’s been so long since anyone wanted to know me and
you bring me home and away all at once. “Hey, do you remember those black-
and-white pictures of Kurt Cobain and his buddies in the meadow? Photos from
the early days, before Dave Grohl was in Nirvana?”
You nod. You think you do, yeah.
“Well, it just hit me. My mom had that picture up on the fridge when I was a
kid. It looked like heaven to me, the tall grass…”
You nod. “Come on,” you say. “The best part of this place is downstairs.”
You stop short in Cookbooks. Someone’s texting you and you’re writing back
and I can’t see who it is and you look at me. “Are you on Instagram?”
“Yep, are you?”
It’s just so fucking easy, Mary Kay. I follow you and you follow me and you
are already liking my book posts—heart, heart, heart—and I like your picture of
you and Nomi on the ferry, the one with the best fucking caption in the world:
Gilmore Girls. It’s Instagram official. You’re single.
You lead the way to the stairs and tease me about my account. “Don’t get me
wrong… I love books too, but your life strikes me as a little off balance.”
“And what would you suggest, Ms. ‘Gilmore Girl’? Should I post my beef and
broccoli?”
You turn red. “Oh,” you say. “That’s Nomi’s little joke. I got pregnant in
college, not high school.”
You say that like the father is a sperm donor with no name. “I’ve never seen
that show.”
“You’d like it,” you say. “I used it to get my kid to think of reading as cool.”
I know what you’re thinking. You wish there was more of me on my fucking
“feed” because here I am, seeing your whole life, pictures of you and your best
friend, Melanda, at various wineries, you and your Meerkat off being
#GilmoreGirls. You don’t get to learn much about me and it’s not fair. But life
isn’t fair and I won’t bore you by humble-bragging about being a “private
person.” I put my phone away and tell you that I had Corn Pops for breakfast.
You laugh—yes—you leave Instagram—yay!—and I feed you the right way,
mouth to ear. I tell you about my home on the water in Winslow and you roll
up your sleeves a little more. “We’re practically neighbors,” you say. “I’m around
the corner in Wesley Landing.”
There’s no way you’re this way with all the volunteers and we make it
downstairs and you graze my arm and I see what you see. A Red Bed. Built into
the wall.
Your voice is low. Hushed. There are children present. “How good is that?”
“Oh, that’s a good Red Bed right there.”
“That’s what I call it too. And I know it’s smaller than the green one…” The
green one is too green, same green as RIP Beck’s pillow. “But I like the Red one.
Plus it has the aquarium…” Like the aquarium in Closer, and you scratch an itch
that isn’t there because you want to throw me down on that Red Bed right now
but you can’t. “My library was nothing like this when I was a kid, I mean these
kids have it made, right?”
That’s why I wanted to raise my son on this island and I nod. “My library
barely had chairs.”
There was a little tremor in my voice—stop vague-booking out loud about
your shitty childhood, Joe—and you lean in closer as in Closer. “It’s even better
at night.”
I don’t know what to say to that and it’s too good with you, too much, like
ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and you feel it too and you point at a
closet. “Alas, some kid peed on it and the janitor’s out sick. You mind getting
your hands dirty?”
“Not at all.”
Two minutes later I am scrubbing urine out of our Red Bed and you are
trying not to watch but you want to watch. You like me and how could you not?
I do my dirty work with a smile on my face and I moved here because I thought
it would be easier to be a good person around other good people. I moved here
because the murder rate is low, as in not a single fucking murder in over twenty
years. The crime is so nonexistent that there are not one but two articles in the
Bainbridge Islander about a couple of architects who stole a sandwich board from
another architect and the population skews older and the Red Bed is good as
new and I put my cleaning supplies away and you’re gone.
I go upstairs to find you and you knock on the glass wall of your office—come
on in—and you want me in your den and I like it in your den. I wave hello to
your posters—RIP Whitney Houston and Eddie Vedder—and you offer me a
seat and your phone rings and I never thought I’d feel this way again, but then, I
never thought Love Quinn would kidnap my child and pay me four million
dollars to walk away. If unspeakably bad things are possible, then unspeakably
good things are too.
You hang up the phone and smile. “So, where were we?”
“You were just about to tell me your favorite Whitney Houston song.”
“Well, that hasn’t changed since I was kid. ‘How Will I Know.’ ”
You gulp. I gulp. “I like the Lemonheads cover of that song.”
You try not to stare at me and you smile. “I didn’t know that existed. I’ll have
to check it out.”
“Oh yeah. It’s good. The Lemonheads.”
You lick your lips and mimic me—“The Lemonheads”—and I want to lick
your Lemonhead on the Red Bed and I point at the drawing on your wall of a
little storefront. “Did your daughter do that?”
“Oh no,” you say. “And now that you point it out… I should have something
she made up here. But yeah, I made that when I was little. I wanted to have my
own bookstore.”
Of course you did and I’m a rich man. I can help you make your dream come
true. “Did this bookstore have a name?”
“Look closer,” you say. “It’s right there in the corner… Empathy Bordello.”
I smile. “Bordello, eh?”
You touch pearls that aren’t there. You feel it too and your phone rings. You
say you have to take this and I ask if I should go and you want me to stay. You
pick up the phone and your voice changes, high as a kindergarten teacher in a
well-funded school district. “Howie! How are you, honey, and what can we do
for you?”
Howie tells you what he wants and you point at a book of poems and I pick
up the William Carlos Williams and hand it over and you lick your finger—you
didn’t really need to do that—and your voice changes again. You murmur a
poem to Howie and your voice is melted ice cream and then you close the book
and hang up the phone and I laugh. “I have so many questions.”
“I know,” you say. “So that was Howie Okin…” You said his whole name. Do
you like him too? “He’s the sweetest older man…” Nope! He’s a Mothball. “And
he’s in hell right now…” No one knows hell more than me. “His wife passed away
and his son moved away…” My son was born fourteen months and eight days
ago and I haven’t even met him. And he’s not just my son. He’s my savior.
“That’s so sad,” I say, as if my story isn’t sadder. I’m the victim, Mary Kay.
Love Quinn’s family dipped into their coffers to pay my defense attorneys
because Love was pregnant with my son. I thought I was lucky to have money
on my side. I thought I was going to be a dad. I learned to play guitar in that
fucking prison and I rewrote the lyrics to “My Sweet Lord”—Hare Forty,
Hallelujah—and I told Love that I wanted our family to move to Bainbridge, to
real-life Cedar Cove. I went online and found us the perfect home, complete with
a fucking guesthouse for her parents, even though they never let me forget that
they were footing the bill, as if they had to mortgage a fucking beach house.
Fact check: They didn’t.
Your phone rings. And it’s Howie again. And now he’s crying. You read him
another poem and I look down at my phone. A picture I saved. My son on day
one. Wet and slick. A little risk taker. A rascal. I didn’t take this picture. I
wasn’t there when he emerged from Love’s “geriatric” womb—fuck you, doctors
—and I am a bad dad.
Absentee. Invisible. Out of the picture and not because I’m taking the
picture.
Love called two days later. I named him Forty. He looks just like my brother.
I went along with it. Fawning. I love it, Love. I can’t wait to see you and Forty.
Nine days later. My lawyers got me out of jail. Charges dropped. The parking
lot. Fresh hot stale air. The song in my head. Hare Forty, Hallelujah. I was
somebody’s father. Daddy. I got into a town car. My lawyers all around me. We
need to stop by the firm for you to sign a few papers. Next stop, the parking
structure of a concrete fortress in Culver Fucking City. No sun underground.
No son in my arms, not yet. Just a few papers. We rode the elevator to the
twenty-fourth floor of the building. Just a few papers, won’t take long. The
conference room was wide and indifferent. They closed the door even though
the floor was empty. There was a goon in the corner. Thick torso. Navy blazer.
Just a few papers. And then I learned what I should have known all along. My
lawyers weren’t mine. Love’s family wrote the checks. The mercenary attorneys
worked for them, not me. Just a few papers. No. They were injustice papers.
The Quinns offered me four million dollars to go away.
Bequeath all access to the child. No contact. No stalking. No visitation.
The Quinns are happy to pay for your dream house on Bainbridge Island.
I screamed. There is no dream without my fucking son.
I threw an iPad. It bounced and it didn’t break and the lawyers didn’t
scream. Love Quinn feels that this is in the best interest of the child. I wouldn’t give
up my flesh and blood but the goon put his gun on the table. A private dancer, a
dancer for money can get away with murder on the twenty-fourth floor of a law
firm in Culver Fucking City. They could kill me. They would kill me. But I
couldn’t die. I’m a father. So I signed. I took the money and they took my son
and you spin around in your chair. You grab a notepad. You scribble: You okay?
I think I smile. I try to anyway. But you look sad. You scribble again.
Howie is the nicest man. I just feel terrible.
I nod. I understand. I was a nice man, too. Stupid. Locked up in jail
mainlining Cedar Cove, trying to stay positive. I believed Love when she said
we’d move up here together, as a family. Ha!
Again you scribble: The world can be so unfair. I can’t get over his son.
You go back to consoling Howie Okin and I’m not a monster. I feel for the
guy. But Howie raised his asshole son. I’ve never seen my little Forty. Not in real
life. I only see him on Instagram. Love is a real sicko, yes. She kidnapped my son
but she didn’t block me. Chills every time I think about it. I lower the volume
on my phone and open Love’s live story and I watch my boy hit himself on the
head with a shovel. His mother laughs as if it’s funny—it isn’t—and Instagram is
too little—I can’t smell him, can’t hold him—and it’s too big—he’s alive. He’s
doing this right now.
I make it stop. I close the app. But it doesn’t stop, not really.
I became a dad before he was born. I memorized Shel Silverstein poems and I
still know them by heart even though I don’t get to read them aloud to my son
and I miss my son and Silverstein’s boa chokes me out, that boa slithers in my
skin, in my brain, a constant reminder of what I lost, what I sold, technically,
and it is wrong, so wrong, it is up to my neck and I can’t live like this and you
hang up your phone you look at me and gasp. “Joe, are you… do you need a
tissue?”
I didn’t mean to cry—it was allergies, it was William Carlos Williams, it was
the saga of poor Howie Okin—and you hand me a tissue. “It’s so comforting
that you get it. I know it’s not my ‘job’ to read poems when some of these
patrons have a bad day but it’s a library. It’s an honor to be in here and we can
do so much and I just…”
“Sometimes we all need a poem.”
You smile at me. For me. Because of me. “I have a good feeling about you.”
You’re moved because I’m moved—you think I was crying for Howie—and
you welcome me aboard and we shake hands—skin on skin—and I make a
promise in my head. I’m gonna be your man, Mary Kay. I’m gonna be the man
you think I am, the guy who has empathy for Howie, for my evil baby mama, for
everyone on this terrible fucking planet. I won’t kill anyone who gets in our
way, even though, well… never mind.
You laugh. “Can I have my hand back, please?”
I give you your hand and I walk out of your office and I want to kick down
the shelves and tear up all the pages because I don’t need to read any fucking
books anymore! Now I know what all the poets were talking about. I’m doing it,
Mary Kay.
I’m carrying your heart in my heart.
I lost my son. I lost my family. But maybe bad things really do happen for a
reason. All those toxic women won me over and fucked me over because they
were part of a larger plan to push me onto this rock, into this library.
I see you in your office, on the phone again, twirling the phone cord. You
look different, too. You already love me, too, maybe, and you deserve it, Mary
Kay. You waited a long time. You gave birth. You give poems to Howie and you
never got to open your bookstore—we’ll get there—and you pushed your
Murakami on that Mothball, as if that Mothball could ever appreciate being all
but sucked inside. You’ve spent your life in your office, looking up at the posters
you held onto since high school, the pop star and the rock star. Life never lived
up to the lyrics of their songs, to the passion, but I’m here now. I have a good
feeling about you.
We’re the same but different. If I’d had a kid when I was young, I would have
been like you. Responsible. Patient. Sixteen years in one fucking job on one
fucking island. And you’d fight to make things better if you were so alone like
me and this morning, we both got out of bed. We both felt alive. I put on my
brand-new sweater and you put on that blue bra and your tights, your little
skirt. You liked me on the phone. Maybe you rubbed one out while Cedar Cove
was muted on your TV and am I blushing? I think so. I pick up my badge and
my lanyard at the front desk. I like my picture. I never looked better. Never felt
better.
I clip the badge to the lanyard—how satisfying, when life makes sense, when
things click, you and me, beef and broccoli, the badge and the lanyard—and my
heart beats a little faster and then it beats a little slower. I’m not a sonless father
anymore. I have purpose. You did this to me. You gave this to me. You placed a
special order and here I am, tagged. Lanyard official. And I’m not afraid that I’m
getting ahead of myself. I want to fall for you. I’ve had it rough, yeah, but you’ve
had to hold it together for a child. I’m your long overdue book, the one you
never thought was coming. I took a while to get here and I got banged up along
the way, but good things only come to people like us, Mary Kay, people willing
to wait and suffer and bide the time staring at the stars on the walls, the bare
concrete blocks in the cell. I pull my lanyard down over my head and it feels like
it was made for me, because it was, even though it wasn’t. Perfect.
2
Yesterday I overheard two Mothballs call us lovebirds and today we’re in our
usual lunch spot outside on the love seat in the Japanese garden. We eat lunch
here every fucking day and right now you are laughing, because we’re always
laughing, because this is it, Mary Kay. You’re the one.
“No,” you say. “Tell me you did not really steal Nancy’s newspaper.”
Nancy is my fecal-eyed neighbor and you went to high school with Nancy.
You don’t like her but you’re friends with her—women—and I tell you that I had
to steal her newspaper because she cut me in line at our local coffeehouse,
Pegasus. You nod. “I guess that’s karma.”
“You know what they say, Mary Kay. Be the change you want to see in the
world.”
You laugh again and you are thrilled that someone is finally standing up to
Nancy and you still can’t believe I live next door to her, that I live right around
the corner from you. You chew on your beef—we eat beef and broccoli every day
—and you close your eyes and raise a finger. You need time—this is the most
serious part of our lunch—and I count down ten seconds and I make a buzzer
noise. “Well, Ms. DiMarco? Sawan or Sawadty?”
You tilt your head like a food critic. “Sawan. Has to be Sawan.”
You failed again and I make another buzzer noise and you are feisty and you
tell me that you will fucking win one of these days and I smile. “I think we both
won, Mary Kay.”
You know I’m not talking about a stupid Thai food taste test and you wipe a
happy tear off your cheek. “Oh, Joe, you kill me. You do.
You say things like that to me every day and we should be naked on the Red
Bed by now. We’re getting there. Your cheeks are rosy and you already gave me
a promotion. I am the Fiction Specialist and I built a new section in the library
called “The Quiet Ones” where we feature books like Ann Petry’s The Narrows,
lesser-known works by famous authors. You said it’s nice to see books find new
eyes and you knew I was watching you shake your ass when you walked away.
You’re glued to me in the library, every chance you get, and you’re glued to me
here, on the love seat, warning me that Fecal Eyes might rat me out on
Nextdoor.
“Oh come on,” I say. “I stole a newspaper. I didn’t steal her dog. And they’re
like everyone here. Lights out by ten P.M.
You come on,” you sass. “You love being the rebel night owl. I bet you’re up
all night chain-smoking and reading Bukowski.”
I like it when you tease me and I smile. “Now that you mention it, Bukowski
might be the way to get Nomi off her Columbine kick.”
“That’s a great idea, maybe I’ll start with Women…You always appreciate my
ideas—I love your brain—and I ask you what you think Bukowski would have
thought of my fecal-eyed neighbor and you laugh-choke on your beef, my beef,
and you hold your stomach—it hurts lately, what with the butterflies, the
private jokes. I pat you on the back—I care—and you sip your water and take a
deep breath. “Thank you,” you say. “Thought I was gonna faint.”
I want to hold your hand but I can’t do that. Not yet. You pick up your
phone—no—and your shoulders slouch and I know your body language. I can
tell when the Meerkat is texting—you sit up a little straighter—and I can tell
when it’s not the Meerkat, like now. I’ve done my homework, Mary Kay—it’s
amazing how easy it is to get to know a woman when she follows you back
online!—and I know about the people in your life, in your phone.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” you say. “Sorry, it’s just my friend Seamus. This will just take a sec.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “Take your time.”
I know, Mary Kay. You have a “life” here and it’s mostly about your daughter,
but you also have your friends, one of whom is Seamus Fucking Cooley. You
went to high school with him—yawn—and he owns a hardware store.
Correction: He inherited the store from his parents. Whenever he texts, he’s
whining about some twenty-two-year-old girl who’s fucking with his head—ha!
—and you are compassionate. You always say that he’s sensitive because he used
to be picked on about being short—I bet the shithead bullies used to call him
Shortus—and I always bite my tongue—Look at Tom Fucking Cruise!—and
you’re still texting.
“Sorry,” you say. “I know this is rude.”
“Not at all.”
Making you feel better makes me feel better. But it’s not easy, Mary Kay.
Every time I ask you to get coffee or invite you to pop over you tell me you can’t
because of Nomi, because of your friends. I know that you want me—your skirts
are shorter every day, your Murakami is hot for me—and I come in early and I
stay after my shift ends. You can’t get enough of me and you’re spoiled because
I’m here almost every day. You never send me home and when you joke about
the two of us loitering in the parking lot I tell you that we’re lingering. You like
that. Plus, you like all my fucking pictures.
@LadyMaryKay liked your photo.
@LadyMaryKay liked your photo.
@LadyMaryKay WANTS TO FUCK YOU AND SHE IS PICKY AND PRIVATE
AND PATIENT AND SHE FINALLY FOUND A GOOD MAN AND THAT’S YOU
JOE. YOU’RE THE ONE. BE PATIENT. SHE’S A MOM. SHE’S YOUR BOSS. SHE
COULD GET FIRED FOR HITTING ON YOU!
Finally, you shove your phone into your pocket. “Oof, I think I need a drink.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Yeah,” you say. “I think I told you he has this cabin in the mountains…”
You told me about his fucking cabin and I’m not impressed. I’ve seen his
Instagram. He doesn’t like to read and he bought his biceps at CrossFit. “I think
so, yeah.”
“Well, he brought this girl up there and she spent the whole trip complaining
about the lack of Wi-Fi. And then she bailed on him.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah,” you say. “And I know it sounds bad, this same old story of a middle-
aged guy going for twenty-two-year-old girls, but”—there is no but, it’s just plain
bad—“you know how it is. He’s like a brother to me. He’s insecure…” No. He’s
just a man. “And I feel for him. He does so much for this island. He’s a saint,
truly. He donates books constantly…” ONE HUNDRED GRAND, HONEY.
“He’s like our own Giving Tree…”
No man is an island or a tree but I smile. “I got that impression,” I say. “I saw
signs for his Cooley 5K and the Cooley ‘street cleaning task force.’ But maybe
instead of doing so much for others…” God, this hurts. “Maybe he should be in
that cabin clearing his head.”
“Yeah,” you say. Yeah. “And that’s probably the right move because he truly
does have the worst luck with women.”
Sorry, Mary Kay, but if you knew about my exes… “He’s lucky he has you.”
You blush. You’re quiet, too quiet, and you don’t want this fucking man, do
you? No. If you wanted him, you would have him because look at you. You sigh.
Sighs are signs of guilt and okay. He wants you and you don’t want him—you
want me—and you shrug. “I don’t know about that. It’s just second nature for
me, you know, helping people, being there…”
We are the same, Mary Kay. We just have different styles. “I can relate.”
We’re quiet again, closer now than we were an hour ago. My whole “Mr.
Goody Two-shoes” plan isn’t just about me anymore. It’s about us being good
together. I swore I won’t ever hurt anyone for you, not even the guy who owns
the hardware store where the female staffers swan around in tight jeans and
tight shirts bearing the Cooley name. I’m kind like you. I’m good like you. I
gulp. I go for it. “Maybe we could get a drink later…”
You put your hand on your shirt. Deep V-neck sweater today, deep for a
librarian who bends over a lot. Say yes. “I wish,” you say, as you stand. “But I
have girls’ night and I should probably get back inside.”
I stand because I have to stand. “No pressure,” I say. “Just throwing it out
there.”
We’re lingering as if we can’t bear to go inside and time is slowing down the
way it does before a first kiss and we do need to kiss. You should kiss me or I
should kiss you and it’s fall and you’re falling in love with me and I’ve never felt
less alone in my life than I do when I’m with you. There’s an invisible string
pulling our bodies together but you walk to the door. “Hey, if I don’t see you,
have a good weekend!”
Six hours later, and I am NOT HAVING A GOOD FUCKING WEEKEND,
MARY KAY. I want to spend my downtime with you and okay. You didn’t lie
to me. You’re not out with Seamus—he’s at a dive bar watching a soccer game
because people here like soccer—but you’re at Eleven Winery with Melanda.
She’s your “bestie” and she’s @MelandaMatriarchy on Instagram—oy—and
she celebrated Gloria Steinem’s birthday by posting a picture of… Melanda. This
woman is an English teacher, she’s your daughter’s teacher, constantly harassing
your Meerkat to stop romanticizing Dylan Klebold in the comments—
Boundaries, anyone?—but you see the best in people. Melanda was the first
friend you made in Bainbridge and she “saved your life” in high school, so when
she issues Instagram mandates to BELIEVE ALL WOMEN—as in, the mandate
is on a T-shirt stretched over her unnecessarily big boobs—well, you like every
fucking one of them.
And you do this even though she doesn’t like all of your pictures—you are the
bigger person, just like me—and when she wants to go to Eleven Winery and
bitch about her OkCupid dates—generally this is every Tuesday and every
Friday—you go.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that I should be with you, that Melanda should
be with Shortus. But they’re two sides of the same coin. She likes to hate men
because she’s too guarded to find real love—your words, not mine—and this
man-boy wants a chick to suck on his Shortus. And then my phone buzzes. It’s
you.
You: How’s your night?
Me: Hanging in there. How’s girls’ night?
You: You mean women’s night.
This is our first text—YES!—and I can tell you’re a little drunk. I want to
pound my chest and pump my fist because I’ve been waiting for you to reach
out to me and I haven’t reached out to you because I have to be paranoid. I
know how it works in this antiromantic world. I couldn’t be the one to hit you
up on your personal phone because the Injustice System could take my innocent
gesture and frame me as a fucking “stalker.” This is life without a Get Out of Jail
Free card but it turns out, life is good. You did it, Mary Kay! You crossed the line
and texted me after hours and the library is closed but you are open. And thank
God I dragged my ass to Isla Bonita tonight—another win!—because now you’re
gonna see that I’m not sitting at home pining for you. I’m just like you, out on
the town with my friends—the other guys at this bar would appear to be my
“friends” on security camera footage—and now I get to make you sick with
FOMOOM—fear of missing out on me.
Me: Well I’m at BOYS’ night. Beer and nachos and soccer at Isla.
You take a beat. It’s killing you to realize that I’m on Winslow Way too, 240
feet away. Come on, Mary Kay. Spill that wine and run to me.
You: You make me laugh.
Me: Sometimes boys and women drink at the same bar.
You: Melanda hates sports bars. Long story. Bartender was rude to her once.
I bet every bartender in the state was rude to Melanda but then, it can’t be
easy being Melanda. I snap a picture of the bumper stickers behind the bar—MY
BARTENDER CAN BEAT UP YOUR THERAPIST and I DON’T HAVE AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM.
YOU’RE JUST AN ASSHOLE—and I send it to you and then I write to you.
Me: Tell your friend Melanda that I get it.
You: I love you.
Me. Numb. Lovestruck. Speechless. Cloud 9000. I stare at my phone, at the
dots that tell me there’s more to come and then boom.
You: Typo. I meant I love your picture. Sloppy fingers. lol sorry just… yeah… wine.
My heart is pounding and you love me. You said it. Everyone around me is
oblivious, but Van Morrison is egging us on from the speakers—this seems like a
brand-new night and this feels like a brand-new night—and what the fuck am I
doing?
You want me. I want you. Fuck it.
I’m outside, en route to Eleven Winery, closer as in Closer, but then I stop
short.
Yes, you told me where you are but you didn’t invite me to join you. And
let’s say I did interrupt your women’s night. Is this really the way for us to start
our love story? Deep down, I know that good guy island etiquette requires that I
give you your fucking “space.” The walls of Eleven are thin and I hear laughter in
“your bar.” You’re not just with your best friend. You know a lot of flannel-
vested townies inside and I want to rescue you from that noisy tedium that can’t
possibly compare to our lovebird lunches in the garden.
But I can’t save you, Mary Kay. Tonight we made progress—you texted me,
you started it—and I want that to be what you think about when you wake up
tomorrow. It’s not easy, but I walk into the alley, away from the sound of your
voice. Before I get home, I’m smiling again because hey, this was still a big night
for us. You had all those people to talk to, your best fucking friend, but that
wasn’t enough for you, was it? You picked up your phone and texted me. Rude.
Obsessed. Sassy. And of course you couldn’t help it.
After all, you love me.
And you can tell me that you didn’t mean it that way. You can point to the
fact that you were drinking. You can say that you were sloppy. But anyone with
a phone knows that there are very few actual mistakes when it comes to the
things we put in writing, especially after a few drinks. You said it and on some
level, you meant it and your words are mine now, glowing in the dark in my
phone.
I sleep well for a change, as if your love is already working its magic on me.
3
Everybody working for the weekend can bite me. I hate the weekends on this
island, the flabby, brunchy vats of time where families and couples convene and
revel in their togetherness with no regard for me, alone, missing you so much
that I walk to the Town & Country grocery store—your grocery store—just
hoping to bump into you at some point this weekend while your I-Love-You is
still fresh, still new.
Sadly, we miss each other on Saturday and again on Sunday. But fuck you,
weekend warriors, because Monday’s finally come. I look good even though I
didn’t sleep last night—There’s no doubt, I’m in deep—and I pull a bright orange
sweater over my head. This will make it easier for you to spot me in the stacks
and I check Instagram. Last night, I posted some yearning Richard Yates. Did
you touch the white empty heart beneath my Young Hearts Crying and turn it
red?
No, you didn’t. But that’s okay.
@LadyMaryKay did not like your photo because she likes YOU, Joe.
I lock my door even though the Mothballs tell me I don’t have to lock my
door and I walk by the movie theater on Madison—I want to go down on you in
the dark—and I go to Love’s Instagram and watch my son tear up Good Night,
Los Angeles. I know better than to walk into Love’s online family museum when I
need to be at my best and I see your Subaru in the parking lot—you’re here!—
and I quicken my pace and then I slow down—Gently, Joseph—and I walk inside
but you’re not on the floor and you’re not in your den. Grrr. I shuffle off to the
break room, where a married old Mothball tells me about his wife harping on
him to take Advil for his lower back pain and I want that to be us in thirty
years, but that will never be us if we don’t seal the fucking deal.
I fill Dolly Carton and push her into the stacks and boom. It’s you. You put
your hands on Dolly and your eyes on me. “Hey.”
I fight the urge to do what you want me to do, to grab you right here, right
now. “Hey.”
“Do you want to go get lunch in town or are you attached to your Cedar Cove
special?”
YES I WANT TO GO TO LUNCH. “Sure.”
Your cheeks are Red Bed red and you want to eat food with me and there is
a zipper in the center of your skirt and it’s a skirt I’ve never seen, a skirt you
broke out today, for me, for our lunch date. You fiddle with the zipper. You
want me to fiddle with it. “You wanna go now?”
We are putting on our jackets and we are lovebirds in a movie, strolling on
Madison Avenue under a classical score. You want to know if Fecal Eyes
introduced herself yet and I tell you she didn’t and you sigh. “Unbelievable,” you
say. “See, if this were Cedar Cove, Nancy and her husband would have baked you
a pie by now.”
I don’t want a pity party so I ask about your weekend—code for: remember
when you told me you love me?—and you tell me that you and the Meerkat went to
Seattle. I am bright, interested. “That sounds fun. What’d you do?”
“Oh you know how it is. She’s at that age where she walks ten feet ahead of
me and if I want Italian, she wants Chinese and if I say that sounds good…”
“She wants Italian.”
“And she was freezing, she refused to bring a jacket. We popped by to visit
some old friends who have a guitar store, they’re like family…” Your voice trails
off. And you shrug. “And lunch was just Danishes on the ferry. Another proud
mom moment, you know?” You laugh. “So, Joe, did you… do you want kids?”
It’s a trick question. Nomi’s a senior in high school and if I say I want kids
and you don’t want more kids then you have a reason to push me away. But if I
say I don’t want kids, then you might think I don’t want to be a stepfather. “I’ve
always felt like, if it happens, it happens.”
“It’s the difference between men and women. For all you know, some kid
could show up and knock on your door, 23andMe style, like ‘Hi, Dad!’ ”
If only you knew, and I smile. “What about you? Do you want more kids?”
“Well… Nomi was the surprise of my life, you know? Lately, it’s hitting me
that there’s this whole new chapter ahead. I don’t know about another kid, but
opening a bookshop, that I can see.” Your voice trails off—you’re picturing us in
our Bordello—and you dig your hands into your pockets. “So,” you say, your
voice shaky with first-date nerves. “How was the rest of guys’ night?”
I like this new side of you, Mary Kay. Jealous. Frisky. And I am sarcastic. “Oh
you know, beer… nachos… babes.”
“Ah, so does that mean you met someone?”
God, you have it bad for me and I smile. “Well, I thought I did…” I have to
tease you a little. “But then this woman I work with texted me and I guess I
kinda blew it.”
You know that you are this woman and you shrug, slightly demure, and it’s a
reminder that as much as we are soulmates, we don’t know each other, not like
this, on a sidewalk in motion. “Oh come on,” I say. “You know I’m kidding… I
don’t go out on the prowl at bars and I’m certainly never, you know, looking for
babes…” RIP Beck walked into my bookstore same way you happen to work at
my library. “For me it’s always intangible. It’s not about looks… it’s about
chemistry.”
Did you just arch your back a little bit? Yes you did. “I get that,” you say. “I
relate.”
We fall into a natural, sexy silence and if we were on a busy four-lane street
in L.A., I could take your hand. I could kiss you. But this is an island and there is
no anonymity and the walk is over. You open the door to the diner and my eyes
turn into hearts. Retro red. Red booths like our Red Bed and you chose this
place because of the booths. You know the host and he’s a gentle man—ring on
his finger—and he tells you your booth is open, your booth as in our booth.
We sit across from each other and I did it. I got you all to myself. And you
did it. You got me all to yourself.
I open the menu and you open a menu even though you’ve been eating here
for a hundred years. “I always get the same thing, but I think I’ll mix it up today.”
I make you want to try new things and I smile. “Any suggestions for me?”
“Everything’s good,” you say. “But I wouldn’t mind if you got something with
fries… just saying.”
You order a bowl of chili and I go for a club sandwich with fries and you
smile at me but then something catches your eye. You sit up straight and wave.
“Melanda! Over here!”
It’s supposed to be you, me, and fries but your friend Melanda clomps up to
our booth. Body by Costco—bulk-order boobs—and she moves like a linebacker
charging for an end zone, as if life is war. She’s sweaty—wash that shit off before
you enter a restaurant, Melanda—and she needs a tutorial on Instagram filters
because the dissonance shouldn’t be this jarring. You air-kiss her and tell her she
looks great—I don’t agree—and why is she here? Are you hazing me? The host
brings Melanda a menu and her nostrils flare and she’s a so person, sucking up
the oxygen with a non sequitur. “So I just had the worst row at school with that
math teacher Barry who thinks that being ‘a father of daughters’ entitles him to
help me with the Future.”
She’s not British and she shouldn’t say row and you look at me. “Melanda’s
starting a nonprofit for local girls…” Melanda bites her lip in protest and you
elbow her in response. “A nonprofit for young women…” She winces and you
throw up your hands as in I give up and she puts her eyes on me.
“So, what MK means is that I’m building an incubator for young women. It’s
called The Future Is Female. You’ve probably seen posters in the library…”
“I sure did,” I say, recalling the mixed messages inviting girls to establish
boundaries online and commanding them to use her hashtag in all of their posts.
#MelandaMatriarchySmashesThePatriarchyand the young women who forget to
promote her brand!
Melanda laughs. “And?”
“And obviously I’m all for it.”
You’re different around her, cautious, but that’s the story of humans. We
shrink to fit. I know Melanda’s type. She doesn’t want questions. She wants
praise, so I tell her it’s a genius idea. I don’t say that there’s a way to do these
things without being a fucking asshole. But there is. “Well,” she says. “I’m past
the idea phase. We launch early next year.” She picks up your water glass.
“Which reminds me, MK, did you review my latest mission statement?”
You didn’t review it yet and you pull a packet of Splenda from your purse
and she grimaces like you pulled out a crack pipe or a Bill Cosby biography.
“Sweetie, no,” she coos. “You have to stop trying to kill yourself.”
That language was telling. On some level, she wants you to die, and you don’t
know it and she doesn’t even fully know it and it’s all a little sad.
“I know,” you say. “I’m terrible. I have to stop it with the Splenda.”
It’s not my place to butt in—are you ever gonna introduce us?—and she sips
your water and sighs. “So they fired my trainer, finally. I wasn’t the only one who
complained about him.”
You say you’ve never joined a gym and I want to hear more but Melanda cuts
you off to bitch about her toxic trainer and I wish she’d follow the rules spelled
out on her T-shirt—LET HER SPEAK—and you wink at me and… wait. Is this a
fucking setup?
“Melanda,” you say. “Before we get off track, this is Joe. I told you how he’s
volunteering at the library, he just moved here a few months ago.”
I extend my hand. “Good to meet you, Melanda.”
She doesn’t shake my hand. She sort of pats it and this isn’t a setup. My first
instinct was right. You are hazing me and Melanda’s like a wannabe tough frat
guy in a Lifetime movie who doesn’t want anyone else in the frat. “How nice,”
she simpers. “Another white man telling us what to read.” She slaps her clammy
hand over mine. “Honey, please. You know I’m kidding, just having a day.”
You make eyes at me the way you did on Day One in the library—Please be
patient—and Melanda says that her toxic trainer asked Greg, the barista at
Pegasus, to stop selling her cookies and you nod, like a therapist. “Well, I’m glad
that Greg told you about it. He’s a good guy in that way.”
Her nostrils flare. “Well let’s not pat Greg on the back, Mary Kay. He was
laughing, which means he probably laughed about it with my trainer too. Ex-
trainer.”
You nod, Dr. Mary Kay DiMarco. “Okay, but remember. Greg’s in there all
day and when you deal with the public all day, you hear crazy things. Greg does
strike me as one of the good ones. And imagine if he didn’t tell you about the
trainer.”
You tamed her without dismissing her—brilliant—and she makes a self-
deprecating joke about being Bitchy McBitcherson and now you cut her off. “Stop
it, Melanda. You’re allowed to have a reaction.”
I want to tear off your tights but for now I just nod affirmatively. “You said
it, Mary Kay.”
I was beaming when I said that, beaming at you, and Melanda felt it and we
are a party of three and she scans the diner and you nudge her, girlfriend to
girlfriend. “On a happier note, you’re seeing that Peter guy this week, right? The
one from Plenty of Fish?”
She grunts. No eye contact with you or me. “Plenty of Fish? More like plenty
of pigs. He sent me a dirty joke about Cinderella and a Pumpkin Eater and,
needless to say, I reported him.”
“Well,” you say. “You know how I feel about those apps…”
Melanda fixes her eyes on me now. “And what about you, Joe? Are you on the
apps?”
She’s not stupid. She saw me beam at you. But I don’t want to be that asshole
pooh-poohing her way of life. “No,” I say. “But maybe I’ll join just to give Peter a
piece of my mind.”
It was a joke and you laugh but she doesn’t. “Aw,” she says. “That’s sweet but I
don’t recall asking you to fight my battles. All good here.”
I let it slide. Imagine all the dick pics she gets, all the rejection. You take the
reins and change the subject. “So, Melanda. How’s my daughter? For real.”
“Good,” she says.
You look at me and tell me that Melanda knows more about Nomi than you
do and Melanda is proud—she’s one of those bestie aunts—and she says that
Nomi is cooling off on Dylan Klebold and you sigh. “Thank God. I was hoping it
was just a phase.”
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” I say, because I have a voice too. “Kids go
through phases.”
Melanda grunts. “Well, I wouldn’t diminish a young woman’s feelings as a
phase…”
It was okay when you said it was a phase and the three of us aren’t gonna be
at Eleven Winery any time soon. I get it. You take care of Melanda because she’s
alone. She’s telling you about Nomi’s ideas for her imaginary incubator and she’s
not Auntie Melanda. She’s Auntie Interloper and you almost jump out of your
seat.
“Seamus!” you shout. “Over here!”
So it really is a hazing ambush and this is Seamus in real life, working the
room like a politician, glad-handing the other diners with his masturbation
paws. Did that dryer work out okay for you, Dan? Hey, Mrs. P, I’ll swing by and check
out your furnace. He wears a long-sleeve Cooley Hardware T-shirt and a baseball
cap with the same logo—we get it, dipshit—and he’s too short for you. Too
smarmy for you. But he grins at you like he could have you if he wanted.
“Ladies,” he says. Juvenile. “Sorry I’m late.”
I can just hear God in heaven. We’ll make this one short and squat with arms too
long for his body and a bombastic voice that turns off women. But it’s hard enough
down on Earth, so let’s give him piercing blue eyes and a strong jaw so he doesn’t blow
his brains out when the midlife reaper scratches at his door. But it’s not all bad. I slide
in to the wall. At least this way I’m across from you. “Joe,” you say. “I’ve been so
excited for you to meet Seamus.”
You say that like he’s not the one who’s lucky to meet me but I am Good Joe.
Convivial Joe. I ask him if that’s his hardware store as if the question needs to be
asked and the waitress delivers coffee—he didn’t even have to place an order—
and he laughs. Smug. “Last time I checked.”
The three of you gossip about some guy you went to high school with who
got a DUI. You’re leaving me in the cold and I don’t have history with you and
this is beneath you, using your friends to ice me out. I sit here like a mute monk
and I should step outside and call Fuck You Slater, Ushkin, Graham, and Powell
to file a class action against Marta Kauffman et al., because they made Friends
and that show is the reason we’re in this mess. On a show like Cedar Cove, the
goal is love. You watch because you want Jack and Olivia to get together. But on
Friends, everything is an inside joke. They brainwash you into thinking that
friendship is more valuable than love, that old is inherently better than new
when it comes to people.
I dump ketchup on my fries and you reach onto my plate, reestablishing our
intimacy. “Is this okay?”
I nod. “Go for it.”
Seamus wrinkles his nose. “No fries for me,” he brags. “I’m doing a Murph
later. You wanna join, New Guy?”
I dab the corners of my mouth with a napkin. “What’s a Murph?”
Melanda grabs her phone and Seamus “enlightens” me about the wonders of
CrossFit, telling me a Murph will kick-start my body transformation. “I have more
muscle now than I did in high school, and in a couple months… six tops… you
could too, New Guy, if you join up.”
Melanda is fully checked out and you’re not eating my fries anymore. You’re
paying attention to him, bobbing your head as if exercise is a thing that interests
you—it isn’t—and this is why people don’t bring friends on a first fucking date,
Mary Kay.
You pound your fist on the table. “Wait,” you say. “We have to talk about
Kendall.”
Melanda cuts you off. “No, we need to talk about my queen. Shiv.
I open my mouth. “Who’s Shiv?”
Seamus laughs. “You’ve never seen Succession? Come on, New Guy. You don’t
have a job. You have all the time in the world!”
Off you go, raving about Kendall and Kendall is a stupid name, a few letters
away from Ken Doll. It’s no fun when three people are talking about a show that
one person has never seen. You reach for a fry and your hand lingers on my
plate and I can’t stay mad at you.
“Hey, guys,” I say. “Did anyone see the movie Gloria Bell?”
None of you saw Gloria Bell and Seamus isn’t sold—sounds like a chick flick—
and Melanda shuts down—I can’t add one more thing to my list—and you smile.
“Who directed it?”
“This Chilean guy,” I say. “Sebastián Lelio.”
Melanda makes a face. “A male director telling a woman’s story… how
lovely.”
“I hear you,” I say. “But Julianne Moore is incredible. And the dialogue is top
shelf… it has a Woody Allen vibe.”
Melanda’s nostrils flare. “Okay, then,” she says. “I think that’s my cue.”
You tense up and she waves for the check and I will fix this. Fast. “Whoa,” I
say. “I just meant that it’s a smart film.”
Melanda doesn’t look at me. “I don’t condone Woody Allen or his art.
You dig your credit card out of your purse and we will not end like this.
“Melanda, I’m not defending Woody Allen. I was just trying to say that Gloria
Bell is a good movie.”
“And you think Woody Allen is a synonym for good? Great. White male
privilege for dessert! Ugh, where is that check?”
You’re staying out of it and Seamus is giggling like an eighth-grade boy in sex
ed. “Melanda, I really do think you misunderstood me.”
“Ah, must be my lady brain on the fritz again…”
Seamus laughs and you show your teeth. “Oh, you guys… come on now. Truth
is, Joe, I think Melanda and I watched Beaches and Romy and Michele so many
times back in the day that we missed a lot of good movies and never really
caught up.”
Melanda grunts. “Sweetie, don’t bother. We can go.”
“Look,” I say. “I only mention Woody Allen because say what you will about
him… his movies have a lot of great female leads. And Julianne Moore is
incredible in Gloria Bell.You are staring at me like you want me to stop but I
can’t stop now. “Melanda, I think you’d like the movie, I’m sure of it.”
“Of course you’re sure. You know everything!”
I’m taking the heat for all the monstrous men in the world—who can blame
Melanda for using me as a whipping post?—and you reach for my ice-cold fries,
you’re stress-eating and I won’t let Melanda Peach me.
“Melanda,” I say. “I don’t know everything. No one does.”
“Pff,” she says. “Least of all me, a woman…” She shakes her head. “A librarian
who endorses a child molester. How nice!”
Shortus drops a twenty and makes a run for it and you pick up the bill and
Melanda’s on her feet, lecturing me. “I’m sorry I get passionate.”
“Melanda,” I say. “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I’m not apologizing to you,” she says and she looks at you like Can you believe
this guy? “As a teacher, I know that we can’t separate the art from the artist. And
I won’t praise a man for telling a woman’s story. But you do you, New Guy.” She
smiles at you. “You ready, sweetie? Do you need a ride?”
You squirm. Message received. “Thanks,” I say. “But I feel like walking.”
Melanda smiles. “I would too if I ate all those carbs.”
You look at me but what can you do? She’s your friend, your old friend, and
you get into the car with her and I am on foot. In hell. I fucked up my hazing
and by the time I get back to the library you’re gone—you have a conference in
Poulsbo—and I don’t think I made your coed frat.
At the end of my shift, I test the waters and post a page from a diner scene in
Empire Falls and two minutes later…
@LadyMaryKay likes your photo.
Okay, you wouldn’t like it if you didn’t still like me and of course you like
me. We have our books and the Brooklynites are right. Books are magic. We are
magic. You send me a text.
You: Did you have fun at lunch?:)
I know it’s considered rude to respond to a text with a phone call but it’s also
inconsiderate to haze a guy before you have sex with him. I walk outside. I call
you.
You pick up on the first ring. “Well, hello there!”
“Is this a bad time?”
“I just got home but I have a couple seconds… What’s up? Everything okay?”
“Well, that’s what I was gonna ask you…”
“You mean lunch? Oh Joe, Melanda lives to debate and she liked you, she
did.”
My muscles relax. “Phew, because for a minute there it felt like she didn’t…
but if you say everything’s okay…”
“Joe, seriously. You were fine. Melanda… Well, yeah, she gets fired up. But
she’s very passionate, very smart and you know…”
Your daughter is home. I hear cabinets slamming and you tell me that you
should probably go and I do the right thing. I let you go. For a moment I consider
walking to your house. But if I go and spy on you, I open myself up to busybody
neighbors who might “warn” you about a “strange man” lurking in your yard.
(Dear Bainbridge: Get a life.) Things are supposed to be different with you,
Mary Kay. I am supposed to be different with you. If I watch you from afar, I
am transforming from a person who is in your life to a person who is on the
outside, looking in. I don’t want that for us and I know you don’t either.
I do the right thing and go home, I don’t feel at home in my home because
the fecal-eyed family is out there, throwing bean bags into holes—yawn—so I
grab a coffee and head downstairs to the place that makes my house special, the
reason I chose the property over all the others. It’s called a Whisper Room. You
turn on the lights, you close the door and that’s it. The world is gone They can’t
hear me and I can’t hear them—long live soundproof spaces—and Love thought
this room was creepy when I showed her the pictures. She saw padded walls and
she called it a cage. But you get me, Mary Kay. You know this house. When you
realized where I live, you said you’d had wonderful times in this Whisper Room.
You knew the guys who owned the place. You hung out down here and I take a
deep breath—maybe I’m breathing you in right now—and I have to be patient.
You really are one the one. I just have to fight harder.
I do sit-ups and watch a little fucking Succession. Your boy Kendall has weak
shoulders and basset hound eyes. I bet he never read Empire Falls, let alone Last
Night at the Lobster, another selection for our Quiet Ones at the library. The
endorphins kick in—Shortus is right about some things—and I don’t want to sue
Marta Kauffman anymore. I want to send her flowers because she and her
Friends also taught us that real relationships take time, that sometimes you make
a baby with the wrong person, you fall in love with the wrong person, but
eventually, you get with the right one.
You.
4
It’s been two days since you ambushed me with your fraternity siblings and I
didn’t “stalk” you. I’ve been good. I went against all my best instincts and joined
CrossFit to make nice with Shortus (a.k.a. to keep an eye on that fucker just in
case) and I’ll admit it, Mary Kay. I did judge you a little bit. This adolescent
cliquey side of you is not ideal. You’re a woman. A master of library science. But
you’ve been hunkered down on Land’s Fucking End for your entire life. I tear
the tag off a brand-new black cashmere sweater—my gift to you, for us—and
tonight you’ll see the light.
It’s date night, motherfuckers!
You were so cute when you asked me out. You were smoothing a sticker on
Dolly Carton and I bent over to look at the sticker—THE FUTURE IS FEMALE—and
you stayed low, close. I leaned in closer. “Did you get permission to vandalize
Ms. Carton?”
You staggered upright and flattened your skirt. “Haha,” you said. You looked
at your phone. “I should probably get going. I have book club tonight at the
wine bar…” I smiled—oh Bainbridge, you need to see Cocktail—and you wanted
me to know where you’re going. “Eleven as in the winery,” you said, so nervous,
so fucking cute. “But we’ll be outta there by ten.”
You waved goodbye and you scratched your tights, drawing my eyes to your
legs.
Invitation received, Mary Kay, and I RSVP yeah as in yes.
I’m waiting for you in a recessed mini-mall across the street from Eleven and
finally your Book Club winds down and there are credit cards and hugs, false
promises about getting together soon and why do you women lie to each other so
much? I slink around the block—and I slow down—and you spot me.
“Joe? Is that you?”
You jaywalk to me—no RIP Fincher to issue any tickets—and I meet you
halfway, across the sky. Do we hug? We don’t hug. I nod toward the bar I chose
for us, not a fucking winery, just a pub. “Come on,” I say. “One drink.”
You shift your purse. “I should probably go home. We ran late tonight.”
I expected a little pushback and I know all about your shouldprobably
disorder. Shel Silverstein should probably have written a poem about the
shouldprobablies and the female need to express her awareness of what a good
woman would do right now. But you’re still hesitating and what the hell is there
to think about? You’re my neighbor. You live right around the corner and the pub
is right around the corner and your daughter isn’t six—there’s no babysitter to
relieve—and your shoulders are tense getting tenser—“I don’t know, Joe…”—and
did you learn nothing from Lisa Fucking Taddeo? Stop feeling guilty, for fuck’s
sake.
I am the man you need me to be right now. Chill. Cavalier. “That’s too bad,” I
say. “This could have been my very first Book Club.”
Your shoulders drop. “Well, I’d hate for you to miss out on your very first
Book Club. One drink. One.
No one means that when they say it and I open the door to the Harbour
Public House and you walk in and we are a couple now. We make our way to a
table and I tell you how much I really did like meeting your friends and you are
puffed up. “Oh good! See, they’re nice, right?”
You sit in a booth and I sit on the other side. “And you were right,” I say.
“Melanda isn’t mad. She followed me on Instagram…” White lie. I followed her
first but she did reciprocate. “And she made me think about a lot of stuff…” Ha!
“And her incubator sounds incredible…” As if her posters are doing anything for
anyone but her. “You gotta love that, ya know?”
You gotta love me and you do. I’m in your circle, at your table. “Yeah,” you
say. “She’s great, she has a powerful voice…”
“Extremely. Your people are good people.”
You smile. I smile. The heat between us is palpable and you look around and
remark on how empty it is and it’s just us and a couple of guys in wool hats.
Sailor types. Our jackets come off and it’s obvious you’ve been drinking and the
barmaid approaches, a soft and pear-shaped pre-Mothball. I ask to see a menu
and you look at me. “Oh,” you say. “I ate. I should probably just have a water.”
I smile, undeterred by another shouldprobably. “I don’t mind eating alone.”
You end up asking for a glass of tequila—frisky—and I order a Southern fried
chicken sandwich and a local vodka soda and you promise to steal French fries
again as you lace your fingers together as if you’re on a job interview. “So,” you
say. “How’s the house coming along?”
“Shit,” I say. “So, it’s true. You really don’t talk about the book in Book Club.
You talk about everything but the book.”
Your voice is loose with liquor but you’re nervous—it is a first date—and
you’re babbling about Billy Joel—you’ve always loved “Italian Restaurant”—as
you text your daughter and tuck your phone into your purse. You tell me about
your Book Club, how my fecal-eyed neighbor Nancy picked apart the book. We
agree that there is always a Nancy and I tell you about a reading I hosted in
New York when a Nancy had notes for the author. We’re in flow. The talk is
small, but we’ve never been like this, alone in the dark, at night, in a booth.
“Okay,” you say. “I have to ask. I know you were done with New York and
L.A. But I’ve been thinking about you…” You said it. “And I feel like there has to
be more. A single guy moves into a big house on Bainbridge. What’s her name?
The reason you’re here.”
I groan the way any guy does when a girl wants to hear about his past and
you plead. You endured three hours with a bunch of women you’ve known since
high school, most of whom are married to men or women you’ve known for
aeons.
“Come on,” you say. “Tell me why you really bit the bullet. Who are you
running from?”
It’s the dream—you want to know everything about me—and it’s the
nightmare—I can’t tell you everything about me. I learned the hard way, with
Love, but there is no way for us to move on unless you learn why I am the way I
am, handsome, available, good.
I start at the beginning, my first love in New York. I tell you that I fell hard
for Heather (RIP Candace). It was lust at first sight. I saw her in a play—pretty
as Linda Ronstadt—and I tracked her down at the playhouse.
You wipe your glass with a napkin. “Wow. You went all out for this girl.”
“I was young. It’s different when you’re young. You get obsessed.”
You give me a yeah and you are jealous, the idea of me obsessed with another
woman. I sip my drink while you picture Linda Ronstadt on top of me and I tell
you what you need to hear, that Heather broke my heart. You perk up. You
want to know more and I tell you about the day she dumped me. “I’m checking
out this apartment in Brighton Beach because I think we’re gonna move in
together,” I begin, remembering that day on the beach, Candace. “It was a hot
summer night. I’ll never forget the smell, the gnats…”
You’re happy because this girl made me unhappy and you pout. “Please don’t
ruin New York for me, Joe.”
I laugh and I tell you that Heather dumped me over voicemail while I was in
that apartment and you gasp—no—and I laugh defensively, lovingly, the way you
do when enough time has passed and you’re ready to love again, in a way you
never have before. “Yep.”
My chicken sandwich arrives and you pick up one of my French fries and you
chew. “Wow. You lost the girl and the apartment.”
I take a bite of my chicken and you reach for another fry. We are clicking.
You want the bacon, I can tell, and I pull it out of my sandwich like it’s a block
of wood in Jenga and you pick it up. Crunch.
“If you think Heather’s bad, oh God, let me tell you about Melissa.”
You rub your hands together and this is fun. It’s cathartic for me to tell you
about Melissa (RIP Beck). In this version, I was a waiter at a diner on the Upper
West Side and Melissa came into the restaurant, sat in my section, and wrote
her number on the bill. You take a big sip—Well, that’s aggressive—and I say that
Melissa was too young for me. Your cheeks turn as red as the Red Bed. You like
that I’m the anti-Seamus, that I want a woman, not what our youth-obsessed
society would call a trophy.
“Yeah,” I say. “Way too young, but I thought she had an old soul. Her favorite
book was Desperate Characters.
You wipe your hands, feeling threatened again. I tell you what I learned from
Melissa, that reading doesn’t always promote empathy. She was a competitive
fencer and she was in a love-hate codependent relationship with her best friend
Apple (RIP Peach Salinger). “But that wasn’t the problem,” I say. “In the end,
Melissa was in a relationship with one person and one person only.”
We say it at the same time: “Melissa.”
You feel for me. I endured Melissa’s numerous microbetrayals. I tried to love
her, help her focus on her fencing (writing). And then she cheated on me. She
slept with her coach (psychologist). You bury your head in your hands. “No,”
you say. “Oh God, that’s horrible on so many levels.”
“I know.”
“A coach.
“I know.”
I’m eating my sandwich and you’re looking at me like I should be crying. “It’s
really not so bad,” I say, realizing that it isn’t, because look where it got me, to
you. “You’re lucky to get your heart broken. That just means you have a heart.”
I’m not ready to talk about Amy, about Love, so I move us past anecdotes into
theory. “Everyone is the wrong person until you meet the right person…” You
rub your empty ring finger. “I’m not bitter, Mary Kay. If anything, I hope they’re
doing great…” Up in heaven, or dust in the wind. “I hope they found the right
person.” I pray for a remorseful almighty lord—Hare Forty—and I take a big bite
of my sandwich.
You let the waitress know that we would like another round—fuck yes—and
you admire my healthy outlook on life. I tell you it’s no big deal. “So,” I say, because
the door to your heart is cracked now, the tequila, the details about my life, and
you’re finally ready for me to enter. “You and Nomi… real-life Gilmore Girls.
What’s the story there?”
You let out a deep sigh. You look around the restaurant, but no one is
listening to us. No one is close. I know it’s not easy for you, being on a date, but
you are. You know it. You begin. “I was young but I wasn’t that young, and my
life… well, I told you about my parents.”
“Mary Kay mom and dear old dad.”
You smile. “Yeah.”
“Did your dad put up a fight when you moved up here?”
I smell onions, layers peeling away, revealing the truth under the truth. You
tell me you didn’t understand the divorce. There was no scandal, no cheating. “It
was like one day, my mom woke up and she didn’t want her pink Cadillac
anymore. She didn’t want him either.”
“Were there signs?”
“I missed them,” you say. “Are you good about signs? Reading people…”
Yes. “Well, who can say?”
“I think we all see what we want to see.” You look around again, so nervous,
as if one of these people is going to text Nomi and tell her that her mother is on
a date. And then you relax again. “Well, my mom sort of just announced that
she was done with Mary Kay, that we were moving to Bainbridge Island, that
she was craving nature.”
“And you don’t know why she left him?”
“No clue,” you say. “It was amiable. There was no custody battle, no fight. He
was so calm that he drove us to the airport! He’s my dad and he’s kissing us
goodbye like we were going away for the weekend. We left him all alone. My
mother made me complicit. But then, that’s not fair to say because it’s like I
said. It was all so damn amiable.
I feel for you, I really do. “Jesus.”
“One day my mom’s harping on me to use more eyeliner and the next thing
you know… we live here and she’s telling me that I don’t need lipstick. I didn’t
ask her why we left, but then… what’s scarier than your mom becoming a total
stranger?”
I think of where I stand with Love, powerless against a woman’s blind
determination to make our child her own. “I get it.”
“And then, after all that, my mom spent every night on the phone with my
dad, egging him on to eat better.”
“Strange.”
“Right? And this was before cell phones. I couldn’t call my friends back
home. I didn’t have any friends here yet. I felt so alone. She was always in her
room, taking care of my dad, letting him tell her how beautiful she is as if they
were still married. I remember thinking, Wow. You leave him… You move to
another state. But you never leave a man, even when you do.”
“Jesus Fucking Christ.”
You air-toast me with your empty glass. “And that, my friend, is too much
information.” We’ve come full circle, inverted the joke, and you signal for
another drink and you’re in flow, the levee broke. “It’s like… we all know about
sham marriages. But what about a sham divorce?”
“That’s a good way to describe it.”
You stare at the table and the waitress plunks our drinks down and you
thank her and sip. “I just wish I knew why she left him at all if she was only
going to spend the rest of her life on the phone with him, you know? Because
why not just stay together if that’s what it is? Why uproot my entire life?”
I don’t answer your question. It was rhetorical. All you need is for me to
listen.
“I look back and I don’t know how I survived.” You breathe. You are
activating the most important empathy, the empathy we have for ourselves. “My
mother and I were bickering nonstop. One night I lost my temper and threw my
landline at her and she had this huge welt on her forehead, so bad she had to get
bangs to cover it up.” I smile but you furrow your brow and oh that’s right:
violence against women is always bad, even when it’s you. “It was like Grey
Gardens minus the fun…” I love you. “I guess your Cedar Cove fantasy got under
my skin because no one welcomed us with open arms.” You sip your drink.
“Then, one day, Melanda asked me to eat lunch together. She told me all about
her fucked-up family…” Foregone conclusion. They named their child Melanda. “I
told her all about mine. She said I’d fit in really well because everyone on this
island is fucked up, they just like to pretend they’re not and… I dunno. Life just
went on from there. Melanda was my buffer. She showed me all that graffiti at
Fort Ward. And that graffiti… well, it helped. It still helps.”
“How so?”
“It’s like a conversation that’s still alive. My mom and I, we never got around
to hashing it out. But I go to Fort Ward and I feel like I can still talk to her even
though she’s gone. Like maybe one day she’ll appear in the sky and tell me that
I’m not doomed to mess up my daughter the way she messed me up…” That is
why you stay away from love and you shrug. “I dunno. I’m probably just drunk.”
You’re not drunk. You just haven’t found anyone to talk to. You look at me—
you can’t believe I’m finally here—then you smirk. You can’t believe I’m still
here. “Pretty bad, huh?”
“No,” I say. “Pretty human.”
I said the right thing and you laugh. “Well, I swore I’d never confuse Nomi
like that. Ever.
You’re self-conscious. You felt so safe with me that you forgot about where
we are and you glance around the pub, nervous. You wipe away a half-tear and
you snort. “Sometimes I think I got pregnant just to piss her off, to remind her
that if you really love someone, you know, you fuck them instead of just talking
on the phone…” You are a little drunk now. “And once in a while when you’re
actually having sex, the condom breaks. C’est la vie.”
“I get it,” I say.
Another anxious look around the bar. “Well, the timing was tough… but
yeah, I did have this hunger to make my own little family, to kind of show her
up.”
“And you did.”
“Have you met my kid?”
“Oh come on,” I say. “Your kid is fucking great. You know it.”
You do know it and it’s important for you to realize that you are a good
mother because once you see that, you can let me in all the way. We are still
treading water, even after all you said. You’re holding back as you open up
about your father and explain that he calls you a lot. “I don’t always pick up, I
mean I have Nomi, I have a job, and every call ends in frustration. I’m not my
mother, you know?”
“It’s fundamentally different.”
“I can’t stay on the phone with him all night. I will not do that to Nomi.”
You think all men are a threat to your relationship with your daughter and I
am here to help you change. “I’m sure he understands that.”
“I just… I will not do that to my daughter. I won’t let my life ruin her life.”
You think it’s your fault that your dad is sad and I know how that feels. I
push my plate to the edge of the table. You look at me. You need me. “Look,” I
begin. “You can’t fix someone who doesn’t want to be happy.” Hi, Candace. “You
can’t make anyone see the light if they prefer the dark.” Hi, Beck. “You try to do
that, you end up on a dark road. You make bad decisions.” I really did move to
Los Angeles for Amy, the stupidity. “And then you get stuck.” I have a
permanent bond with Love Quinn, a son. “It’s not easy, but you have to accept
that there’s no right move with your dad. You can’t save him from himself.”
The pub is clearing out and you’re rubbing your neck. “Wow,” you say. “And
here I thought we’d just be gossiping about the Mothballs.”
You’re officially drunk. Floppy hands and loose lips and still I want you. You
tell a long-winded go-nowhere story about an old friend in Arizona and you
can’t remember her name and you say you feel like a traitor sometimes. You
don’t keep in touch with anyone from your past in the desert and you came here
like a phoenix from Phoenix.
“I’m the same way, Mary Kay. The ability to move on doesn’t make you a
sociopath.”
You raise your glass and wink. “Let’s hope so.”
We’re closer than Closer. You tuck your chin into your hand. “Joe,” you say,
pulling me in, making me think of your Murakami, all but sucked inside. “Tell
me… Do you like it in our library?”
What I say right now matters and I take my time. “I like it in your library.”
You felt my your. Your foxy lips are wet. “Do you feel good in the library?”
I felt your good. “Yes, I feel good in your library.”
“And you’re pleased with your boss?”
Oh this is fun and I stir the ice in my cocktail. “Mostly.”
“Oh,” you say, and I am the human and you are my resource. “Mr. Goldberg,
do you have a complaint about your supervisor?”
“That’s a harsh word, Ms. DiMarco.”
You lick your lips. “Tell me about your complaint.”
“Like I said, it’s not a complaint. I just want more, Mary Kay.”
“More what, Mr. Goldberg?”
Your bare foot finds my leg under the table and I pay the bill. Fast. Cash. I
am up. You are up. You say you need to stop in the bathroom and the
bathrooms are off to the left and you go in and close the door and then you
open the door.
You grab me by the collar of my black sweater and pull me into the
bathroom and press your body into my body, my body against the wall. The art
in here is full of passion. Nudity and salt water. A naked woman in the sea on
her back. Her hands grasp the shoulders of a frightened sailor, still clothed. It’s a
shipwreck. It’s us. Wrecked. Groping. You kiss me and I kiss you and your
tongue is at home in my mouth—land ho!—and the waves wash over your
shouldprobablies. My hands slide under your tights—no panties, cotton crotch
and my thumb finds your Lemonhead—and you cling to me. You say it all. You
wanted me on the Red Bed and you bite my sweater—this sweater makes you
crazy—and there are sparks in the water—we are on fire—and you are the last
page of Ulysses. You grab me. Oh God, Joe. Oh God.
But then you break away. Cinderella when the clock strikes twelve.
You remember what you are. A mom. My boss.
And you are gone.
5
I know, I know. It was just a kiss. I barely felt your Murakami and I didn’t lick
your Lemonhead but then again. Oh God, Joe. Oh God. What a fucking kiss.
When you’re with the right person you do the right thing and I was smart to
let you go home. I went to my Whisper Room and counted my blessings for all
the bad women who came before you. I get it now. Of course you ran. Real love
is a lot, especially at our age.
I don’t go to Pegasus on the way to work—your kiss is my caffeine—and you
pushed me away, but this is the nature of grown-up love, especially when kids
are involved: push, pull, push, pull. I open the door to the library—pull—and you
aren’t at the front desk and the Mothball on duty doesn’t like me. The day we
met she asked if I’m a Bellevue Goldberg and when I said no she turned her nose
up at me. She points at Nomi’s chair.
“You mind moving that? It’s too cold by that window.”
I move the fucking chair into the fucking stacks and I grab my lunch—WE
eat the beef and WE eat the broccoli—and I tell the Mothsnob that I’ll be right back
and she rolls her eyes. Rude. “I hate to break it to you, but your little friend
called in sick today.”
No. No.
The Mothsnob just chuckles.
You’re not sick and I go into the break room and where are you? Were you
really that drunk? Was our kiss made of tequila? I storm away from Silverstein’s
Whatifs and I pass your office and your door is closed. There is no light in the
attic and you’re not sick. You’re scared.
I take my post in Fiction and the day drags. I sell a recently widowed
accountant on some Stewart O’Nan and I get a day-tripping lesbian to read the
first chapter of Fashion Victim and I am good at my job but I am better when
you’re here to chime in. All day I check my phone and you don’t text and I don’t
text and you kissed me so maybe I should be the one to text you and I try to find
the words.
Hi.
But that’s too fucking wimpy.
Hey.
But that’s too fucking cocky.
Are you there?
But that’s too fucking pushy.
I’m here.
But that’s too fucking needy.
I hate cell phones because if it was 1993 I wouldn’t have a fucking phone and
did you tell Melanda about our kiss? Did she get into your head? I walk out to
the Japanese garden. I could bail on my shift—I’m just a volunteer—and I could
pop by your house and be the Cusack to your valedictorian but I can’t do that
because Nomi’s the one who’s graduating this year, not you. And I don’t do that.
I don’t “pop by” and I don’t steal phones, not anymore. I check your Instagram—
nothing—and I check the Meerkat’s Instagram but there’s nothing about you,
nothing but Klebold. I want to share a picture of Love Story but I would never
be that lame with you. That blunt. That clingy.
I need to talk to you now because the longer we’re apart, the more the kiss
seems like a scratch in the windshield that’s easily sealed and I want to know
why you’re hiding.
At the end of my never-ending shift I skulk back to the break room,
wondering if I used too much tongue and then the door opens. It’s you. Your
eyes are puffy and you fake a smile. “Hi.”
“Hey,” I say. “You’re here.”
Do we hug? We don’t hug. You’re wearing a faded green sweater and you
don’t smile. You gnaw on your lip—you didn’t get enough sleep—and you say
you just stopped by to pick up a few things. You sit across from me like we’re a
couple of Mothballs comparing our MRI results, like you weren’t sucking on my
tongue a few hours ago. I lean over the table to get Closer and you arch your
back. Cold. Farther.
“Look,” I say. “The last thing I want to do is make you uncomfortable.”
“I know,” you say. “I feel the same way.”
I don’t speak. You don’t speak. You told me so much last night but I am
getting that sick feeling that you didn’t tell me everything, that what you told
me isn’t the whole story, but only part of the story. You are looking at me as if
you are warming me up for the news. The bad news. The worst news in the
world.
And here it comes. Those treacherous words: “Joe… we can’t do this. You
didn’t tell anyone, did you?”
“Of course not, Mary Kay. You know I’d never do that…”
You are too relieved. “Okay, good, because if anyone here found out… if
anyone said anything to Nomi…”
“Mary Kay, look at me.”
You look at me. “I am a steel fucking trap. You have my word.”
You calm down a little, but you’re still flinching, looking over your shoulder,
a paranoid inmate on Crucible Island. You don’t let me talk. You say that last
night was a drunken mistake—no—and you weren’t thinking clearly—yes you
fucking were—and I tell you that you were perfect and you shudder. “I am
anything but perfect.”
My words are coming out all wrong and I know you’re not perfect. I’m not
perfect, but it would be too cheesy and needy to tell you that we are perfect
together.
You purse your lips, those lips that are puffy from my kiss. Me. “Can we just
go back to normal? You know… how we were?”
I bob my head like a trained seal that couldn’t make it in the wild.
“Absolutely,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting to rush into anything with you. We can
take it slow. I want to take it slow.”
It’s a big fat lie and you cluck. “That’s the thing, Joe. There is no ‘it.’ There
can’t be an ‘it.’ I have a daughter.”
“I know.”
“I can’t be getting home drunk after midnight. She has to come first.
“Of course Nomi comes first. I know that.”
You hide your face behind your hands and tell me that you’re not emotionally
available right now and I want to take a sledgehammer to the chip in the
windshield and smash the glass because you’re making our kiss about your
daughter. You pull your hands away. “It’s her senior year, Joe, and I don’t want
to miss any part of it…” Then don’t spend two nights a week at a fucking wine
bar with Melanda. “She needs me. She doesn’t have a lot of friends.” You raised
an independent daughter who likes to read and so what if she’s not a
minisocialite the way you were? Neither was I at that age. “To you she’s halfway
out the door, all grown-up… But time flies and it’s almost Thanksgiving and in a
few months, she’ll be away. And I just can’t make any big changes when change
is already coming.” Ha! As if life is ever that predictable and you should let me
in now, right now, so that I’m carving your turkey next week and you are wrong,
so wrong and you sigh. “Do you get it?”
“Of course I get it, Mary Kay. You’re right, there’s no rush. We can put this
on hold.”
You smile. “What a relief. Thank you, Joe.”
You win because you built the boxing ring—Me vs. Nomi—and I can’t hit
above the belt, in the womb. That said, you came to see me and you wouldn’t be
justifying yourself to me if you didn’t care about me, if you didn’t want me
eating your mashed potatoes and your Murakami. Yeah, there was something off
about your little speech, Mary Kay, because deep down, you know you belong
with me now, right now.
Our chairs squeak when we stand and you hang your head. “Do you hate me?”
You’re better than that. You don’t ask stupid questions. But I give you the
stupid answer you deserve right now. “Of course I don’t hate you. Come on. You
know that.”
Then you bite your lip and say the worst word in the English language.
“Friends?”
You cannot shove me onto a tufted sofa with Seamus and Melanda and we’re
not friends, Mary Kay. You want to fuck me. But I shake your hand and repeat
your hollow sitcom of a word that does not apply to us. “Friends.”
6
I go outside. I walk and I walk and my pinky toes burn—these sneakers are for
show, not for this—and I walk away from your house and I want to walk into
your house and I really did fuck up last night, today. I should have torn off your
chastity tights. I should have brought you home or I should have gone home
with you and there is no going back and I am the man. Bainbridge is safe, but
did I text you to make sure you got home okay?
Nope.
You’d been drinking and did I insist on being your escort?
Nope.
I walk into Blackbird and the whole fecal-eyed family is in here—even the
grandfather—and this island is too fucking small and there are so many of them
and there is only one of me and I get a coffee and sit outside on a bench.
I go on Instagram. Bad Joe. Bad. Night is falling and Nomi posted a picture
of you on your sofa and you are asleep in your clothes.
When mom is “sick.” #Hangover.
I wish I could like this picture, I wish I could love this picture but I don’t feel
the love right now. My toes are on fire, my whole body is on fire but you’re out
cold, dead to me, to the world. I take a screenshot of the photo and examine
every corner, every centimeter. I’m not invading your privacy, Mary Kay. We all
post our photos knowing that our followers will zoom in to grade us. I zoom in.
My heart beats.
The fecal-eyed family barges onto the street and none of them say hello—
FUCK YOU, FAMILY—and I look down at my phone and what the hell, Mary
Kay? There’s a bottle of beer on the end table that makes my blistered toes
pound. You don’t drink beer, you don’t like the taste and you don’t let Nomi
drink beer and the bottle is open, half empty. Whose is it, Mary Kay? Who the
fuck is drinking beer in your house? I send a text to Shortus.
Hey Seamus! That gym kicked my ass today. Beer?
I wait and I walk. My toes are never going to speak to me again.
No can do, New Guy. Doing a ten day dry out. Remember: That voice in your head
that says you can’t do it is a liar.
Ugh. I hate gym culture and the beer isn’t his, but whose is it? I reach the
beginning of your street and your house is close but if I walk down that street
and look in your window… I can’t. I promised I would be good and being good
means believing in you, in us, and hey, it’s just one beer. You did look bad today.
I don’t know everything about you and it’s possible that you drink a half a beer
to take the edge off when you’re hungover and I go home and watch more
Succession and you don’t call, you don’t text and Shortus hits me up to tell me
that we can get a beer next week maybe and phones have made it so easy to be
friends without ever having to see your friends and that’s one good thing about
today. One.
I did it. I survived the longest most mind-fuckiest day of the year and my mind
is clear again. I’m calm. I’m not gonna let one stupid bottle of beer get in our
way. All that matters is the kiss, Mary Kay. You broke a rule for me. You swore
that you would never get involved with some guy while your daughter lives at
home and you did.
And you know what? I need to bend a rule too.
This is a scenic island and I’ve barely done any exploring—I will not go to
Fort Fucking Ward without you—and okay, yeah. I went on a couple of nature
walks in the Grand Forest when I first moved here, but I was too raw to really
breathe any of it in.
I tie the laces on my running shoes—my toes won’t hate me today—and I zip
up my hoodie and I put on my headphones—Hello, Sam Cooke—and I lock up
the house and do what all the well-rounded motherfucking men around here do
every day, some of them twice a day: run.
I could run on one of the beaches but the coast is rocky and mottled by
McMansions. I could run on the sidewalks but why should I waste my time on
pavement when I can run in the woods? I didn’t design the island, Mary Kay.
And it’s not my fault that your house is in a development. It’s not my fault that
you chose to live in a waterfront home where the only thing that separates your
backyard from the sea is a two-foot-wide trail that is open to the public.
Your choice, not mine.
I didn’t know you when I moved here and you’re the one who told me that
you live right around the corner. You’ve said it a dozen times and you weren’t
lying and I’m here, not on your street, but on the trail by the water and Jesus
Christ, Mary Kay. There’s something almost perverse about this trail, about you
and your neighbors in Wesley Landing. You’re all fearless exhibitionists, aren’t
you? You all choose to live on land that is the opposite of private. You don’t
have fences because fences would block your access to the trail, your view of the
foliage, the rocky coast, the water and I would never live like this.
But you do.
I stop to stretch, as all runners must do to keep the muscles loose. Healthy.
There’s a large rock on the property line of your house, engraved with the
name of your community. It’s wider than the trunks of the trees and this is the
perfect place for me to stretch my calves. I plant my feet against the back and
lean over and it feels good to stretch and as luck would have it—and at some
point my luck did have to turn around—I have a view of your deck. Who knew?
Your sliding glass door is open and you sit on your deck with a half-empty
bottle of Diet Coke. See that, Mary Kay? You do need me. You sure as fuck don’t
need any more sugar substitutes. You’re on the phone, no doubt with Melanda,
and I turn off Sam Cooke and remove my headphones the way a lot of people
do when they stretch. I can’t hear you and I’m no botanist, but I think there
might be poison ivy where I am, so to be safe, I move to another tree. You’re
used to the people in the woods, on the trails, and you don’t flinch at the leaves
crunching beneath my feet. I can hear you now. You don’t know what to make
for dinner. You have salmon steaks in the freezer but they’re frostbitten—you
need a new freezer, you need to see my freezer—and now you’re back to
counseling Melanda. Don’t text him. You know how it is. If he likes you, he’ll text you,
and if he doesn’t like you, then it’s his loss. She’s arguing—can’t hear her, don’t need
to hear her—and the Meerkat is in the kitchen, slamming cabinets. Annoyed.
You ask Melanda to hold on and you turn your head.
“Nomi, honey, do you want salmon?”
“Do I ever want salmon? It’s like a hundred years old. And before you say it,
no, I don’t want Mexican chicken.”
You laugh—you’re sick of your own chicken too—and sigh. Oh, to be a
mother and cook every day for thousands of days and be tired of your own
Mexican chicken.
The Meerkat slams another cabinet. “Can we cook out on the grill?”
“Well, I guess so… Are you already hungry?”
The Meerkat shrugs—whatever—and she grabs a bag of Tostitos and stomps
off to her room. You go back to Melanda and I feel for Melanda, who’s probably
contemplating a singleton cauliflower pizza. “Sorry,” you say. “I’m back.”
You get a text and you read the text and you respond to the text and is it the
man who drank that domestic beer on your end table? You’re still counseling
Melanda, but what about us? When is it your turn to tell her about the Best Kiss
of Your Life? And seriously. Who drank that fucking beer?
The acid is cooling in my thighs but it’s burning in my heart and you shiver
and stand. You go into your kitchen and you close the screen door. You close
the slider and it squeaks—you need WD-40—and I can’t bear the silence so I put
on my headphones. Sam Cooke tries to comfort me but he’s wasting his time. I
touch my fingers to my toes and the blood rushes to my head and my
headphones cancel the noise of the world, but they can’t silence the alarm in my
limbic system, the one that dings now. Goosebumps crop up on my arms and
my legs as the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight, so many tiny
soldiers. Fight or flight. Slowly, I lift my head and the alarm in my brain was
right. Someone is here. Three feet away. Armed with a backpack and a cell
phone and the two most dangerous weapons in these woods: eyes, blinking
beneath unflattering round glasses.
It’s your daughter. The Meerkat.
7
On Animal Planet, this is how the lion dies. The lion has no natural predators
but an intrusive human on a mission to break the rules of nature shoots him for
the fuck of it.
“Hey,” she says. “You know that’s my house, right?”
I close my eyes. Please, God. Please don’t kill me now.
The Meerkat remains standing. Emotionless. Still. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I got a cramp.”
She nods. Distracted. Good sign. “One time this old guy died out here. It was
summer. He had a heart attack.”
That stings a little but it also snaps me out of my paranoia. “Well, I’m not
that old.”
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m just in a mood because my mom’s making me go get
charcoal.”
Ah, so you were texting with your Meerkat. “You going to the Town &
Country?”
She furrows her brow. “We just call it the T & C. God, you’re such a newbie
still.”
That was a little vicious, but it’s the same with kids as it is with adults. It’s
never about you. It’s about them. She knows she was rude and she squeezes the
straps of her backpack and I smile. Cool Joe. Affable Joe. “I’ll head there too,” I
say. “I could use a Vitaminwater.”
Now we’re walking and this is normal. This is what people do when they
bump into each other and the Meerkat truly isn’t alarmed to see me and here
comes another jogger—Hey, Nomi!—and she knows him too and I flinch at a dog
barking in the woods and she laughs. “It’s just a dog! Are you scared of dogs?”
“No,” I say. I’m still rattled but I have to remember. I was caught off guard,
yes. But I wasn’t caught. “I’m just out of my comfort zone. You grew up in all this
but the woods are creepy to me.”
I remember taking RIP Beck to the woods and I shudder and the Meerkat
grunts. “Oh please,” she says. “These aren’t woods. The real woods are up by my
old school. See, when I was in middle school, I found this old Buick there.”
I nod. “Cool.”
“Yeah…” She sounded like you just then. “There were all these empty alcohol
bottles…” She’s so young for her age. Alcohol. “And the year before that, there
was this big abandoned house in the woods too. That place was supercool. It
used to be a home for wayward boys.”
I raise my eyebrows like a good listener. “Whoa.”
“Now that was creepy. You go up to the fourth floor and you think the house
is gonna fall down and there are old-fashioned wheelchairs and cobwebs. It was
so cool. But, whatever. Everything cool here gets destroyed.”
“That’s just called ‘growing up.’ See, down at Isla, I listen to these old guys,
actual old guys, and they sound like you.”
“Like me? I don’t think so.”
“Oh sure, Nomi. They talk about how this place used to be too, how nobody
locked their doors and they left the keys in the car and didn’t worry about
anyone breaking in because there were more crickets and frogs than people.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“Well, that’s the point. Every generation thinks their way was the best way.”
“But the home for wayward boys… that was actually cool. It was a place to go.
Then they tore it down and now there’s nothing.”
We step aside for a set of cyclists.
“So you’re from New York or something, right?”
That’s a good sign, Mary Kay. A show of actual social skills! “Yep,” I say.
“And it was nothing like this. My library is a good example. We had homeless
people in there, crackheads… now that was scary.”
“At least it’s real. Everything here is fake, fake, fake.”
She tugs on the straps of her backpack and I’m so relieved that I’m an adult.
What a nightmare it is to be a teenager, to think there’s a place where everyone
isn’t fake, fake, fake. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m just mad. My mom always goes crazy
before Thanksgiving but this year she’s crazy-crazy.”
Crazy in Love. “Oh?”
“We always stay here but now she’s dragging us to Arizona to see my papa.”
I wish I had backpack straps to grab because this is news to me. Be cool, Joe.
“Well, maybe Phoenix will be fun.”
She just grunts—yeah right. “So what do you do for stupid Thanksgiving?”
Franzen essays and frozen pizza. “I might hop a ferry and volunteer at a soup
kitchen.”
She waves at a woman raking leaves and the woman waves back and we are
normal. This is normal. But then Nomi gives me what the kids call “side eye.”
“but you said you hated the city. You know there’s no soup kitchen here, right?”
Hate’s a strong word, Nomi. And I like it here, but on a day like that, it’s
nice to get out there and help people in need.”
She just stares ahead. “People never say that love is a strong word.”
Is she high? No. She’s just overdosing on Klebold poems and loneliness. “Huh.
Why do you think that is?”
“Whatever. I’m just annoyed cuz my mom told me not to say I hate her but
she took my Columbine again and I have all these notes in it and I do hate her for
that and dragging us to Phoenix. Anyone would. And don’t tell me she’s just
looking out for me. You’re wrong. She’s a hypocrite. She’s mad because it’s
Columbine. She wouldn’t be mad if I was into some stupid story about horny
babysitters and I’m sorry but Columbine is the best. It is the book.”
And now I miss being a teenager, that salty conviction that you have found
it, the thing that makes your mind make sense to you. You’d want me to be
compassionate, so I tell her I get it, that I too love that book. She just looks at
me. Suspicious Meerkat eyes. And no wonder. Adults lie all the time, but not
this one!
“All right,” I say. “The part that really stuck with me was all the Eric stuff,
fooling his probation officer, how easy it was for him to convince all these so-
called smart adults that he was okay. That’s the problem with this country, the
Injustice System is pretty ineffective.”
I want to talk about incompetent social workers but the Meerkat doesn’t
care about stupid Eric and this is why she doesn’t have friends, because she
doesn’t understand that people take turns. She’s back to ranting about Dylan’s
poems and this is my chance to save her, to help her.
“I get it,” I say, because that’s the first rule of helping any kid. You have to
validate their feelings. “But I think your mom’s upset cuz… well, this therapist I
went to once, he told me that sometimes we all get a mouse in our house.”
“Are you a slob?”
I picture her going home and telling you I have mice. “No,” I say. “See, it’s a
metaphor. The mouse is something you can’t stop thinking about or doing.”
“And the house is your head. Yawn.”
“I know,” I say. “It’s a little simple but the point is that when you get really
into something, it feels good. But it’s not necessarily good for you. I’ve been
there a buncha times.”
She is quiet. Kids are a relief, the way they just shut down and think when
they feel like it. And then she looks at me. “What was your thing?”
Women. Terrible city women. “Well, when I was a kid it was this movie
called Hannah and Her Sisters.”
She turns her nose up at me and oh fuck that’s right. Melanda. “Eew,” she says.
“That’s Woody Allen and he’s on Melanda’s DNW list…”
“Do Not Watch?”
“Yep,” she says. “And he’s at the top. Like the tippity top.”
“Well, your teacher is sure on top of things.”
“She’s more like my aunt.”
Melanda is the mouse in your house. “Well, my point was… that movie was
my Columbine, the thing that changed my life. See, I lived in New York but I
didn’t live in that New York and I wanted to live in that movie. I stole that tape
from Blockbuster, watched it every second I could.”
Nomi responds by repeating that Woody Allen is bad, just like his movie and
I won’t fuck up like I did in the diner. “Okay, but does Melanda think it’s okay
for you to read Dylan Klebold’s poems?”
She growls at the trees above. “There is literally no comparison. He was my
age.”
“Okay… but you have to admit, he did some terrible things… Explain why
you think that’s okay.”
No kid wants a pop quiz and she groans again. “It just is.
“Look, Nomi.” I am channeling Dr. Nicky. “We got off track. I was just trying
to tell you that it’s not always good to have a mouse in your house, no matter
what the mouse is.”
“Did you really read Columbine? The whole book?”
I’m not RIP Benji and I never lie about books, especially with my potential
stepdaughter. “Yep.”
“Did you also read all the stuff Dylan wrote that’s online?”
Kids do this. They bring it back to them, especially a kid like Nomi, younger
than her age, going to school every day in those glasses—so wrong—and wishing
that some maladjusted boy or girl is writing poems for her but knowing it’s not
possible because she’s watching too closely. She picks at a hangnail. “You know
how he writes a letter to the girl he loves and tells her that if she loves him, she
has to leave a blank piece of paper in his locker?”
“Yeah,” I say. “But he never gave her the letter.”
“But he wrote it,” she says. “And that was sweet.” I hope some exchange
student with buckteeth moves here this year and rocks her world and she
crosses her arms. “Anyway, I’m still not gonna watch a Woody Allen movie.”
“Well, that’s fine. Do what you want.”
“So you don’t care?”
I laugh off the question and maybe I’ll go back to school and become a
guidance counselor. “Look, Nomi. It’s like this. Who cares what Melanda thinks?
Who cares what I think? You only need to decide what you think.”
She kicks a rock. “Well I can’t watch any movie tomorrow anyway cuz we
have our stupid family bonding.”
I’m not a part of your family but I am a part of your family and I force my
voice to be steady, as if I’m asking for directions. “What’s that mean for the
Gilmore Girls?”
“Well, first we oversleep. So we wind up on the eleven o’clock even though
we said we’d take the ten.”
“And then…”
“We take the ferry and walk around and look at tchotchkes.”
“Tchotchkes.”
“We also go to bookstores or whatever, but you know how it is. Mostly
tchotchkes.”
Your desk is crowded with tchotchkes and I laugh. “Yep.”
“Then we go to a restaurant with a long line and my mom is too hungry to
wait and I’m like ‘Just put our name in’ and she won’t do it and then the people
who walked in after us get a table and I’m like See, Mom?’…” You said that she
was the problem and she says that you’re the problem and I can’t wait to be a
part of your fucking family. “And then she wants pizza but then she wants
dumplings and she’s like ‘Oh let’s go to this place I heard about from Melanda.’ ”
I laugh. “Been there.”
“And then we go and the place isn’t open yet cuz she can barely work Yelp
and we just walk around starving and look at more tchotchkes and then she
wants some tchotchke she saw in the morning and she gets paranoid that
someone else got it and we run back to the shop and it’s gone and she’s all
waaah.
You’re afraid that you’re gonna lose your shot with me and I smile. “Then
what?”
“She still can’t make up her mind about another stupid tchotchke because
that would mean making a decision so we go to a coffee shop and she gets mad
when I take my book out, like we’re supposed to talk all the freaking time. But it’s
BS cuz she’s sick of me too and she takes her book out and then we come home.
And that’s our family bonding. The end.”
I applaud and the Meerkat laughs, but then she turns into a young version of
you, serious. “It’s really not as stupid as it sounds. I’m not mean.”
“You’re not mean. Family is… it’s a lot.”
“It’s just weird to like… try to bond, you know?”
I do know. I remember sitting with Love in prison and trying to feel in love
with her and Nomi’s done with me. “I’m gonna get a coffee first. See ya.”
I wave. “Say hi to your mom.”
She heard my request but she’s already distracted because she ran into my
fecal-eyed neighbors and I can’t rely on Nomi to tell you about our great
conversation. She runs into people all the time because that’s life here and she’s
mad that you took her Columbine away. I walk into the T & C and it’s bustling. I
feel good. I bent the rules and the universe rewarded me, Mary Kay, because
now I know about your plans for tomorrow and I am on board.
It is time for our family to do some fucking bonding.
8
I know life is ugly. I knew that Bainbridge Island was never going to be exactly
like Cedar Cove. I’m waiting to board the ferry and this guy in line in front of
me is wearing a knit fucking skullcap—someone made it for him, you can just
tell—and yellow-framed sunglasses and he’s rubbing his son in my face, a lesser
Forty with a runny nose. He’s also with his wife, the one who knit that stupid
skullcap and lied to him, told him he can pull off yellow shades. She’s a puffy-
jacket sourpuss and she sniffs her coffee—I think this is oat milk, babe—and I am
alone and they are together and it is absurd.
But not for long, right? Right.
I am taking the 10:00 A.M. ferry to Seattle to get there before you and I’m a
little pushy—Gently, Joseph—but I want to escape from the in-your-face family
that isn’t mine so I move to the left side of the boarding throng into a pack of
lawsuit-hungry retired lawyers just fucking hoping that someone’s landscaper
mows their lawn because it would give them a project. Yes, it’s twee here. If you
go to the police station on your birthday, you get a free donut—you don’t even
have to show ID—but there are twenty-five thousand residents eating locally
farmed beets and commuting to Seattle, forming little commuter cliques.
Debbie Macomber would feel for me, alone on a Saturday, now marooned with
techies talking soccer. I belong nowhere but this is temporary and I’m on board
—that’s progress—and I put on my headphones and break left for the stairs—
two at a time—up to the sundeck. The air helps. The sea, too, a far cry from that
heady brown Malibu foam, and I sit on a bench but I’m faced with a wall clock
covered by a sign that reads I AM BROKEN.
I find another place to sit—gotta be positive—because it’s a big day for us,
Mary Kay. I’m not gonna interrupt your bonding with your daughter and I’m not
“stalking” you. My plan is simple. I’ll have some “me time” and you’ll have your
family time and I’ll watch for the signs; when I notice that the two of you are
getting sick of each other, I’ll “bump into you”—Joe! What a nice surprise!—and
we’ll ride back to the island together. Then, we’ll have dinner at my house. (I
bought salmon steaks and they’re not fucking frostbitten like yours.)
Thanksgiving is five days away and that’s plenty of time for you to cancel your
trip to Phoenix, and you’ll do that after you realize that you can date me and be
a good mom at the same time.
I walk toward the bow, to another bank of benches, and I zip up my jacket.
It’s not freezing, but it isn’t springtime for Hitler and I take off my headphones
because people up here are polite, alone like me. No one is forcing a neighbor to
overhear one side of a cell phone conversation about a busy boring life and I
can’t get that clock out of my head.
I AM BROKEN.
I check Love’s Instagram—I AM NERVOUS—and Forty is biting his nanny
Tressa, who says that my son reminds her of Adam Fucking Levine and Love is
laughing—it isn’t funny—and there is nothing I can do. I delete the fucking app
and shove my phone back in my pocket but then I freeze. I blink. I wish I could
delete my body because what the fuck, Mary Kay?
You’re here. You and Nomi are on this boat, my boat, the one you’re
supposed to miss. You’re thirty feet away and you’re leaning over the railing and
I scoot across the bench, closer to the center of the vessel and I pick up a
newspaper and listen to my heart beat between my ears.
Calm down, Joe. This is like yesterday. If you see me, you see me. It’s fine.
People go to Seattle and I am people. I bend the upper corner of the newspaper
and whoever is driving this ship decides that it’s time to go and we’re on the
move.
You pull a fleece hat out of your saggy, bottomless purse and you offer it to
the Meerkat and she deflects. I can’t hear you, but I see you throw your hands
up and look heavenward—help me, Jesus!—and the Meerkat sulks and stares at
the horizon. You two are off to a rough start and I watched an episode of
Gilmore Girls last night. They needed Luke at times like this and maybe I should
just walk up to you right now and save your morning. I play it out in my head.
Joe, is that you?
Wow! Mary Kay, what a surprise! Do you want to go fuck in the bathroom?
I know. Too much. And the Meerkat might tell you that she told me all
about your plans. Think, Joe, think. If you saw me, you’d come say hi. That’s what
friends do. I’m still in hiding and you haven’t noticed me yet—long live print
newspapers—and the Meerkat leans over the railing. “Ugh,” she shouts. “If you
don’t leave me alone I’m gonna jump, I swear!”
You tell her that’s not funny and she tells you to stop being such a worrywart
and this is adorable—I love our family—and then an oaf in a T-shirt stomps up
the stairs and into the frame and Nomi points at this oaf like she knows him.
“Look at Dad,” she says. “He’s wearing a T-shirt and shorts and he’s fine.”
The word Dad is an iceberg and there is no dad. Dad is gone. Dad isn’t on
your Instagram and Nomi has never said the word Dad and our ship is taking on
water. Fast.
“Hey, Phil,” you say. “Husband of the Year, will you tell your daughter to put
a hat on?”
Dad has a name—it’s Phil—and I am Leo in the ice water, I will freeze to
death on this boat, in this water. The man you call Phil, husband—this is not
happening—he shushes you and our ship is cruising, we are sinking—and he’s a
rock ’n’ roll type of ass and you are Married. Buried.
No, Mary Kay. No.
You don’t have a husband—but you do—and this guy isn’t husband material—
but he is—and he’s not Eddie Vedder and it’s not 1997 so why is he sitting there
with his feet up—Doc Martens—wiping his slimy hands on his Mother Love
Bone T-shirt while he dictates God knows what into his phone? He pecks you
on the cheek—and you let him kiss you—and the ballroom on this boat is
flooded and the water is cold—and you touch him. His face. You casually break
every bone in my body and pull a sweater from your purse.
He won’t take the sweater and I can’t take this. Won’t take this.
Married. Buried.
You must think I’m a moron. The Mothballs didn’t tell me and Melanda
didn’t tell me and Seamus didn’t tell me and your little community is a clique of
mean-spirited liars but fuck me because this is what I get for being Mr. Goody
Two-shoes because since when do I rely on strangers to tell me the truth about
the people I love? You’re married. You really are. He’s whining about your
upcoming trip to Phoenix right now and he sleeps in a bed with you and we
can’t hang out like a family today because he is your fucking family. Not me.
Married. Buried.
He holds up a bag of chips and Nomi claps her hands and I snap a picture of
the motherfucker and there’s a tattoo on his leg and the ink is black: Sacriphil. I
remember that band, barely, one of those nineties, not-quite-Nirvana groups
and WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T I GOOGLE YOU ON DAY FUCKING ONE?
Your husband is an overgrown fan boy in dirty cargo shorts and he has bad
taste in tattoos and he produces another bag of potato chips like some third-
rate magician—I hate magic—and I hate him and right now, worst of all, I relate
to Nomi because I hate you, Mary Kay. You lied to me. You want Phil’s chips
and you wave him on and I remember you in the bathroom of the pub, when
you were mine, when you kissed me. He tosses the chips to you and you catch
the bag like you’re in a bridal party, like it’s a bouquet.
Married. Buried.
This is why you ran away from me and this is why we’ve been treading water
and Nomi screams at the top of her lungs. “Dad! Come look!”
Your husband is an iceberg and I can’t take it anymore. This is the story of
my life. Everything that should be mine, everyone, they’re all snatched away
from me. I lost my son and I’ve tried so hard to be decent. Good. I’ve tried to
forget all the Shel Silverstein poems I memorized when I was incarcerated,
when I thought I’d actually get to be a dad, and now you do the same. You steal
my shot at family and I can’t forgive you, the same way I can’t forget those
fucking poems. You used me, Mary Kay. Love stole my son, but you have stolen
my dignity, my self-respect, and I should have staked out your house the day we
met.
Everything looks different now. You weren’t hazing me at the diner. You
were playing fast and loose, weren’t you? You thought one of your Friends might
say something about your husband in passing. And that’s why you were looking
around in the pub so much on our date. You were afraid we’d get caught. You’re
a dishonest woman. You don’t wear a wedding ring and you criticize your
mother for her sham of a divorce but what the hell do you call this?
Your husband’s angry teenage boy outfit is embarrassing—you must be the
breadwinner—and okay. I never directly asked if you’re married but that’s
because you’re my boss. And okay, it would have been presumptuous of you to
passive-aggressively declare your marital status—So my husband loved the Lisa
Taddeo book—because that’s not your style. But who the fuck are we kidding?
Your husband would never read the Lisa Taddeo book. He’s not a reader. I
can tell and you are right, Mary Kay. We see what we want to see and I didn’t
want to see it. Same way I didn’t want to believe that Love was capable of
stealing my child.
I grab the railing. The ship hasn’t sunk just yet. Yes, you’re married, but if
your marriage was any good, you wouldn’t be so into me. I can still save us. I
google you—I should have done this weeks ago—and there you are, Mary Kay
DiMarco and oh no, oh no. Your husband isn’t a fan of that fucking band. He is
in the band, the lead singer—of course—and Google knows his name because
Phil DiMarco was that guy who sang that song.
You’re the shark inside my shark, you’re the second set of teeth and I just die
underneath.
I’m the one who dies underneath because that’s you on the cover of his album
and the history is sinking in, sinking our ship. Those are your legs under your
black tights and gender-reveal parties are nothing compared to this big reveal—
It’s a dad! It’s a husband! It’s a has-been rock star in shorts!
We’re getting close to the dock and I’m not gonna be intimidated by your
husband. You were his muse and you’re not my muse. I respect you as a person.
And okay, so he was kinda semifamous but he would never be in a clue on
Jeopardy! and I’d rather be your work husband than the husband you loathe so
much that you can’t even speak of him in casual conversation.
He walks up to you and puts his arms around you, and again, the boat is
flooded and the water is cold, but I won’t let it get to me. I will not fucking
freeze to death. You are telling him he needs to put on a sweater—I know you—
and it’s mind-bending to see you like this. Married. Buried. How long did you
think you could get away with this, Mary Kay?
We’re slowing down and you’re searching for something in your purse, and I
bet you’ve been winging it because that’s what you do—Nomi was “the surprise of
your life”—and before I came into your life, you were on cruise control. You
married a music man and I’m sure you loved him at first. You were his tiny dancer
and foxes do like attention—your body parts are on the cover of his album—but
times change. You told me that you never understood why your mother left
your father. You called it a sham divorce. That’s why you’re still in the cage with
Phil. You don’t know how to leave that rat, do you?
Nobody in your family is hungry, but you’re rummaging through your purse.
You pull an Ani Katz book out of your purse—I told you to read that one!—and
you pause. You’re thinking about me. You want me. And then you shove it back
in your purse and I feel guilty because you must be constantly worried about
what happens when the book is out of the bag, when I find out about your life,
when Phil finds out about me.
Your rat groans. “Emmy, stop it already, man. We’re not starving to death.”
“No,” you say. “I know I have a candy bar. It’s in here somewhere.”
You and I are the same, aren’t we? We sacrifice our feelings and our desires
for the people we love. The Meerkat is annoyed—Forget it, Mom—and Phil is
disinterested—Em, I’m gonna eat with Freddy. But you’re still looking for it,
determined to provide for your family, and then you prevail and wave a 3
Musketeers bar in the air.
“Got it!”
It’s impossible not to love you right now, the sheer joy on your face, the win.
You bite the wrapper of the candy bar that you knew was in your purse and you
are the girl who dreamed up the Empathy Bordello. You care about everyone
and that includes your rat husband. You tear the candy bar in half and I love
you for the big things and the little things, the pleasure you take in sharing. But
there’s a fine line between selfless devotion and self-destruction and you give
one half of your 3 Musketeers to Nomi and the other half to Phil and what’s left
for you?
We disembark and I stay out of the way and let you and your family cross
the bridge into the city while I take the stairs down to the street. I watch Phil
wave goodbye to you and the Meerkat and of course this rat stayed with you—
who would leave you?—and you couldn’t leave him. He’s too pathetic, exposing
his legs so that everyone can see his Sacriphil tattoo. You stayed because it
wouldn’t be fair for Phil to fail as a rock star and a husband.
And I didn’t see any of it coming.
I got soft when I moved here, trying so hard to be “good” as if being good is
ever that simple. Life is complicated. Morals are complicated. I wouldn’t even be
here today if I hadn’t bent the rules. I slip into a tourist trap restaurant—I really
do prefer our small-town life—and I order a cup of coffee and begin my work.
Your husband’s band is in shambles but he “works” nights hosting his own radio
show called Philin’ the Blues—ugh—and if he’s up all night, well, I bet you haven’t
had sex in a long time.
He doesn’t care about you, not really. The man lives his life for his fans—they
call themselves Philistans—and he encourages these loud, lost losers to keep on
rooting for a Sacriphil comeback. Our world is fucked—Phil has fans—and your
life is fucked—Phil has you—but now that I’m indoors, on my own, I don’t feel
so bad about any of it. I’m happy that the jig is up. We’re not teenagers and I
have no interest in love triangles—never did—and I’m a New Yorker, Mary Kay.
I’ve dealt with rats all my life. It’s nothing personal. I don’t “hate” them. But rats
carry diseases and you’re in luck because I know how to get rid of them.
I go to the rat’s YouTube channel. I only know the song about the shark,
Sacriphil’s legitimate hit. But it’s time to get into the liner notes, the deep tracks
that tell your story. The first song at the top of the page is ten minutes and
thirty-two seconds long—gimme a fucking break—and it’s called “Dead Man
Running,” and oh Phil, my man, don’t you worry.
Your time has come.
9
In the sixth grade there was this kid in my class named Alan Brigseed.
Obviously they called him Alan Badseed and he was portly. Walked with a limp
because of an issue with his bones. Wore football jerseys to school every single
day and was determined to be a quarterback for the Giants. Real life isn’t Rudy
and back then I knew that poor Alan Badseed would wind up working at a
Dick’s Sporting Goods in New Jersey—I was right—and two years ago, poor
Alan Badseed died in his mother’s basement while he was jerking off.
Your husband reminds me of Alan, Mary Kay. I spent the past thirty-six
hours learning everything there is to know about Phil DiMarco. I read every
profile. I watched every ancient on-screen interview where he talks over the
other guys in his band. I dug into the Philin’ the Blues archives and I went on his
Twitter—he doesn’t understand hashtags and writes Peace# at the end of every
tweet—and most of his followers are aging dope whores—apologies to dope and
prostitutes—and they tag him in pictures of their implants and sometimes he
likes those pictures and do you know about this? Or did you just stop caring a
long time ago?
Like Alan Brigseed, Phil won’t give up the dream. And like Alan Brigseed,
Phil would be better off dead. He doesn’t work. He makes pennies hosting his
graveyard-shift radio show—it’s a glorified infomercial—five nights a week and
okay, so he does make good money on royalties, it’s one of his favorite subjects
on the Blues, but it’s a little less every year. There are few things more tragic
than a man hell-bent on becoming something he just can’t be. You probably
expected more “Sharks” to come along, but like so many artists, that was the
best Phil had in him.
He was famous for a second. And fame is poison.
Rock star fame is especially vile. It’s a drop of food coloring and one drop—
one innocent hungry shark in the water—is enough to turn all the clear water
red and make it stay that way. Every Sacriphil album is less successful than the
one before and it’s some Edgar Allan Poe shit, Mary Kay, the slow demise of his
falling, rising star, the way he fights it every night on the air, gaslighting
Philistans, raging against the industry, thanking you for saving his life as he
blames you for domesticating him. He plays his part well, claiming that he put his
“art” in the backseat so he could throw his soul into being a dad. In reality, Phil
just fucking failed. The turnover rate in his band is high—scary high—and if he
managed a Dunkin’ Fucking Donuts he would have been fired because of his
inability to play well with others.
I turn on the heat in my car. It’s cold tonight and I’m parked outside of your
rat’s recording studio. I bent the rules for us and bent rules are meant to be
broken. I brought two Rachael Ray knives and Phil’s untimely death won’t
tarnish Bainbridge’s reputation as a safe haven. He’s just famous enough to be a
wild card and when an early morning jogger finds him on the street tomorrow,
it will seem like the work of a Philistan gone crazy, karmic payback after years of
getting close with his fans, following them back on Twitter, encouraging them
to pop by and hang. The cops might also think it’s a drug deal gone bad because
I’ve also learned that your husband is in recovery. I listened to every song he
ever wrote and I’m sorry to say it, but you are nothing compared to his true
love: heroin.
I know it all, Mary Kay. I know that you had to “downsize” a few years ago—
it’s all so fucking relative—and move to what Phil calls your sellout, suit-and-tie
saltbox in Wesley Landing. He is pretty funny, I’ll give him that, but the
privilege of it all! Like he deserves a Led Zeppelinesque castle in the woods
because he has one song that some people know by heart. I’m so happy I’m not
famous. And I have a whole new outlook on you.
You got together with Phil in high school. He was in a band. You were into
that.
You got pregnant in college. He put a needle in his arm and penned the best
songs of his life.
You were his muse and then when he couldn’t pull off the magic again, you
were the one he blamed.
You’re his mother. You’re his babysitter. You’re his enabler.
But tonight, I set you free.
It’s 4:00 a.m. and Phil’s awfully lonely—oh how he would hate that reference!—
and I should get out of my car, walk inside, and end his life once and for all. I
grip the handle of the knife.
I turn up the volume on Phil’s swan song—sorry, man—and my timing is
good, Mary Kay. The poor guy is really going off the rails tonight, ranting about
Lucky Kurt Cobain.
As always, his mouth is too close to the mic. “It’s true, man…” His voice isn’t
what it used to be. “Nirvana is Nirvana because Courtney killed Kurt. And
when you’re a guy like me, a survivor… well, we worship the dead. We put ’em
on pedestals. Music just sounds better when the singer’s a goner and it’s the story
of a lot of artists… you die, you’re not around to feel the love, and here comes
the love.”
He talks as if Kurt Cobain wasn’t a star before he died and maybe I won’t
have to kill Phil. Maybe there’s an angry mob on the way right now and I check
the rearview. Nothing. And of course there’s no angry mob. I’m one of ten,
maybe twelve, people listening at this late, early hour.
“Aw, man,” he says. “I’m not bitter…” Oh yes you are, man. “But there was this
one night me and Chris were jammin’…” Impossible to verify. Chris Cornell is
dead. “I had this riff… he riffed on the riff… and let’s just say, a cowriting credit
on ‘Black Hole Sun’ woulda been nice…” I grip my knife because you do not
speak ill of the dead, but then he growls. “Shut it, Phil! Don’t be a whiny little
bitch!He opens a can of beer. “Thing is, I’m not a pretty boy and if I looked a
little more like cutesy-tootsie Eric Clapton…” Oh dear no. No. “Did you guys see
that doc about him? I caught it this afternoon when I was half asleep…” What a
good partner for you, Mary Kay! “Man, Crapton works that schoolboy charm
hard…” True. “But the guy could be a real fucking dick…” Also true. “He’d get
nasty and drunk onstage. He went after his best friend’s girl… and did people
hate him for it? Nah. He rode the horse into hell, he couldn’t finish Layla, and
Duane Fucking Allman rode into that hellscape like a white knight and he’s the
reason we have ‘Bell Bottom Blues.’ Some guys, they inspire that loyalty in
people. When it comes to me… well, no one ever bailed me out…” Oh dear.
“Chris wouldn’t come by while I was trying to finish The Terrible Twos…
I scroll down the Wikipedia page and there it is, the third album: The Terrible
Twos. Don’t put the word terrible in your title, Phil. It’s just too easy for the
critics to slaughter you.
He analyzes his fizzling career—a good marriage is a tough thing to write about
and I revisit one of my favorite interviews with Phil. Nomi was two years old.
Phil was out of rehab, once again, withdrawing from the pink cotton wool (he
stole that metaphor from Eric Fucking Clapton). Anyway, Phil compared you to
his Gibson—you are not an instrument—and said he could stay clean for the
rest of his life if he got to play with you every day. The reporter told you what
your husband said and your response was telling: “It’s not what you expect when
you’re a muse… but what can you do?”
Spoken like a true battered, trapped woman, and I read the lyrics from
“Waterbed,” the fourth track on Moan and Groan.
I gave you what you want, it’s a waterbed
I’m seasick for you, will you gimme head?
Why take ’em off if you won’t give it up?
Why lay down if I’m not enough?
You weren’t his muse. You were his whipping post and you’re ashamed, aren’t
you? You were young, Mary Kay. I made mistakes too—RIP Candace—but I
didn’t marry my mistake. I know, I know. You were pregnant and he wrote his
twisted love letters about his fear of commitment when he was young too. But
then I turn his show back on and he’s digging deep into the past as always,
blasting the pity-party dirge he calls “Sharp Six.”
Aw you got to do it, MAN
You mute her scream with a RING, they command
A Hustler… You want it
It’s at the newsstand…
Summer comes in like a FIRE and it goes
And where she WENT you don’t know
Her body… You want it
But now it’s out of reach…
The alarm cuts you UP at sharp six
You’re just another TOM, you’re a Dick
Your Philstick… It’s broken
She burnt your wick…
You wake up in a CRATE and you’re dead
She’s in a BARREL in your bed
A crate in a barrel… A barrel in a gun…
Remember… the summer…
The end of all the fun…
The barrel of a gun (Repeat 10x)
The song ends and he cackles. “Man,” he says. “Was I some kinda prick or
what?”
Okay, so he regrets the lyrics. But he still plays the song. A Better Man like
Eddie Vedder would bury those hateful, sexist words, but Phil is no Eddie
Vedder and this most hateful album is also the most popular. “Well, Philistans, I
gotta drain the lizard.”
He’s a liar and he doesn’t need to take a piss. He cracks a window and he
smokes a cigarette—I bet that’s not allowed—and he stares at the building
across the street and the playlist is a brainwashing exercise. He plays a go-
nowhere Sacriphil B-side between bigger songs by Mudhoney and the Melvins as
if we, the listener, are supposed to think Phil and his cronies are in the same
league as those legends, as if we the listener are that fucking stupid.
“Well,” he says. “Phil’s back and ya know, every time I hear ‘Shark,’ I gotta
give a shout-out to my girls at home. You all know that I’m nothing without
them. Hell, sometimes I think, What if Emmy never got pregnant… I wouldn’t
have my daughter or my ‘Shark.’ ”
He “loves” you but you don’t love him. When you love someone, you scream
it from the rooftops but you don’t even wear a ring and the Meerkat doesn’t talk
about him either. Your friends don’t ask about him. You think leaving him
would kill him, push him off the wagon, and you’re trapped in this codependent
cycle of abuse and he sighs. “All right, Philistans. Fun fact…” Fact as in fiction.
“First time I played ‘Shark’ for Kurt, he tucked his hair behind his ear and said
he wished he wrote it. I got the chills, man.” BULLSHIT, YOU LIAR. RIP
KURT WOULD NEVER. “Maybe that’s why ‘Shark’ is still burnin’ after all
these years and ya gotta forgive me, my moon’s blue tonight…” Oh God. “I know
Kurt’s a god. You know Kurt’s a god. He fell for a Courtney and I fell for my girl
and… well, I’m still here. I got another ‘shark’ in me. You know it. I know it.
Peace out, Philistans, and to all my NA brothers and sisters, I’ll bump into you
tomorrow.”
He plays “Shark” at the end of every fucking episode and I hate that I love
this song. In theory, it should suck, guitars on top of bass and I forgot about the
cowbell and young Phil wails, before cigarettes got the best of his voice, singing
at you, at me, at everyone on the planet.
You are the shark inside my shark, you’re the second set of teeth
The roses ain’t in bloom, the thorns hide in the wreath
On my front door you bang and bang, let me in, lock me out
You hang me up, I twist, you shout
Eat me, bite me, slay me, spite me
Your body invites me and your fire ignites me and
Why are you the flame (the only one to blame, you and your game)
You swell and hide and now you lock me in this frame
Where I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath
Cuz I’m the shark inside your shark, oh I’m the second set of teeth…
I kill the volume but I have no choice. I have to finish. I have to sing the rest.
You’re the shark inside my shark but I’m the shark inside your shark
You’re me, I’m you. What can we do? You’re me, I’m you
You gnash, I feed… you and your seed…
But do you want me in your dreams?
Do you love me when I’m clean?
Do you hear me when I—
(Cowbell)
SHARK!
It’s Rhyming for Dummies and it’s a jumbled mess of mixed metaphors but he
was smart to end it with another displaced cowbell and I bet you knew that
song was gonna be big. I look at your legs on his album. You want me to think
you stayed for Nomi, but everything looks different now that I know about your
rat. You like being a muse. You still wear your signature tights every day and his
music comes from you. Just once I’d like to fall for someone who isn’t
handicapped by narcissism, but it’s too late. I love you. I can’t kill his success,
but I can pick up my knife.
Your rat he turns out the lights and walks down the stairs and there he is,
thirty feet away, on the sidewalk. He leans against the building the same way he
does on the cover of his hit single, posing for a camera that isn’t there and he
lights a Marlboro Red like he’s James Fucking Dean, like his imaginary Philistans
will summon the courage to emerge from the shadows. He blows smoke rings
and watches them fade into the halogen mist and I don’t know how to blow
smoke rings. Do you like that, Mary Kay? Are you into that kind of shit?
I slip Rachael up my sleeve and I’m ready but he pulls a rabbit out of his
sleeve. His phone is ringing and he takes the call and it’s you.
“Emmy,” he says. “Babe, you okay? Why you up?”
I let the knife fall out of my sleeve. You’re awake. You were listening. I don’t
call you Emmy and he says it too many times—Emmy Emmy Emmy—and he
swears that he got a lot of sleep today—lazy fucker—and he tells you that he’s
gonna go write through the sunrise—oh fuck you, Phil—before he hits a
meeting. He swears he’ll pack his own shit for Phoenix—liar—and he chucks his
cigarette in a puddle. “I’m down to two packs a day, Emmy. And now you want
me to quit for a week for your dad? Are you trying to make me fall off the
wagon? Is that what you want?”
I don’t know what you’re saying. He doesn’t know either because he holds the
phone away. But he must be able to hear a little because he takes a deep breath
and cuts you off.
“Emmy, Emmy, Emmy. Relax. For the nine millionth time… it’s a show. It’s an
act. The label likes my attitude and Nomi’s friends… they’re not up listening to
me. Stop caring about what other people think…” I wish I could hear you.
“Emmy, Nomi doesn’t give a shit if I go to Phoenix and I told you, I’m going. You
win again, babe!… What is with you, lately? What is it?” Me. It’s me! “Christ,
woman, I’m missing a whole week of shows and still you’re bitching at me. What
the hell more do you want from me?” You might be crying. Or apologizing. He
rubs his forehead. “Emmy. Baby, come on. Don’t do that. You know I love you
too.”
My blood runs cold. Hot. No.
He gets into his jalopy and turns on one of his own unknown songs and I let
go of my knife. Love you too means that you said I love you. I turn on my car, I
blast my Prince, but “When You Were Mine” can’t silence the shark inside my
shark.
You love him. You do.
It’s a miserable drive home—A crate in a barrel, a barrel in a gun—and I shove
Rachael into the glove compartment. This is worse than RIP Beck and RIP
Benji. They didn’t have a child and twenty fucking years together. I have to be
smart about this. Yeah, I want Phil gone. But the real problem is you, Mary Kay.
In your own stunted adolescent, nurturing, self-destructive, misguided
maternal, codependent way… you really do love your husband. I can run him off
the road, but that would be dangerous. It might even make things worse. I need
help—Hey Siri, how do you kill love?—but who am I kidding? She doesn’t know.
No one knows. I have to figure it out myself, alone, while you’re in Phoenix
carving turkeys and reinforcing your dysfunctional family bonds.
I drive to Taco Bell. I can have anything I want, but all I want is you, so I get
one of everything.
Happy Early Fucking Thanksgiving to me.
10
It’s the most… horrible time… of the year—mid-fucking-December—and we’re in a
rut. As it turns out, you’re not just beholden to your husband. You’re also
responsible for your dad. You were only supposed to be in Phoenix for a week,
but the day after Thanksgiving, your father fell down the stairs. The Mothball
Howie Okin knows more about your father’s health than I do—we have to fix
that—and Howie informed me that your dad has an osteochondral lesion, which is
Howie-speak for a hole in his bone. Being the good daughter that you are, you
put your rat and your Meerkat on a plane and you stayed with your dad to help
him move into a new house and I don’t begrudge you for helping the old man.
I’m not a what about me asshole, but your dad isn’t the only one in pain. I have a
cardiochondral lesion, Mary Kay. You don’t call. You barely text. Time drags and
time flies—November already turned into December—and I walk outside to get
the paper and fecal-eyed Nancy is hammering a wreath onto her front door. She
doesn’t wave and I don’t wave and WHEN THE FUCK ARE YOU COMING
HOME, MARY KAY?
I have been so good. I didn’t kill Phil. I’ve “processed” my feelings about your
secret life. I’ve given you “space.” And on the rare occasion that you do text me, I
don’t harp on you about your return. I asked you exactly once and your response
was infuriating. Soonish, I guess, I think.
Soonish (adj) FUCKING BULLSHIT, MARY KAY
But I’m just as bad at long-distance relationships. I look at the text I sent you
last night.
Me: How ya doin’?
I couldn’t have done any worse and I know it. You are not ya and it’s a dorky,
broad question, the kind of whining you don’t need right now and I pour Rice
Chex into a bowl. I try to read the paper but I don’t want any more bad fucking
news. I go to Love’s Instagram—I am acing Holiday Induced Self Destruction 101
—and I watch my son whip his arm with another early “prezzie,” a plastic
fucking sword and this is no good either so I get up. I put on your favorite black
cashmere sweater and the sweater and I go outside and get into my ice-cold car.
Nancy’s husband is in his car, too, warming up the Land Rover for his wife, per
usual. I half-wave at him and he pretends he doesn’t see me—Happy Christmas to
you too, asshole—and Nancy swans out of their house. She’s on the phone—Yes,
Mom, but we need a fuller tree for our e-card photo—and I feel like the human
equivalent of a fucking e-card, destined for an e–trash bin. Nancy gets into her
nice warm car and she loves her husband and he loves her (maybe) and he’s a
tool. She’s a tool. But they have each other and you won’t even tell me how
you’re doin’.
I hit the road and lower the volume on “Holly Jolly Christmas” because you
haven’t called me once since you’ve been gone. (So much for Friends.) I bet you
call your rat husband and my phone buzzes—did you read my mind?—but no.
You didn’t. It’s just Shortus. He wants to grab a beer again—CrossBores are not
impervious to the holiday blues—and I won’t waste another night with him. He
doesn’t know shit about you—he’s not your Friend either—and all he really
wants to do is bitch about all the presents he has to buy for his girls in the shop.
Halfway to the library, I slow down—I am in no rush for my daily
disappointment—and I check your Instagram—nothing—and I proceed to my
happy place, which is, oddly enough, your husband’s fucking Twitter account.
His tweets give me hope. Patience. They got me through the first week of your
exodus because he spent his time with you whining about… being with you.
Hey @SeaTacAirport if I go postal it’s on you with the xmas tunes. Peace#
Thanksgiving is the opposite of rock n roll. Peace#
Hey Phoenix. Smoking is legal. Deal with it. Peace#
My sponsor chose the wrong day to lose his cell phone. InLaws# SendHelp#
The wife let me out of my cage. Check me out at @copperblusPHX if you want to hear some REAL
music. I’ll sign your tits AND your T-shirts JK just the shirts, ladies. Whipped# Peace#
Phil is a sad sack and I have to stay positive, Mary Kay. You were probably
happy about the hole in your dad’s bone because it meant that you got a break
from Phil. He’s so transparent. Yeah, he boasted about his show, but the show
must have been a total bust because he didn’t post a single picture with a single
fan, let alone a woman with tits. Even better, your rat appeared in exactly zero
of your staged family photos with the Meerkat… but that’s nothing new. The rat
never appears in your photos, presumably because he has some rule about
tarnishing his image, because he wants people to picture young Phil. (Say what
you will about drugs, but the lifestyle agreed with him and I get why he’s been
TBT1997# ever since he and the Meerkat got back from Phoenix. The man was at
his best when he was high as fuck and skinny as a rail and he’s no George
Clooney, Mary Kay. He doesn’t get better with age.)
Someone behind me beeps and I wave—sorry!—and “My Sweet Lord” comes
on the radio as I pull into the parking lot and Hallefuckinglujah. You’re here. I
wore your favorite sweater—yes!—and I want out of this car and into your orbit
so badly that I trip on black ice. Breathe, Joe, breathe. I don’t want to die, not
now, before we’ve christened the Red Bed—ho ho ho—so I take big, cautious
steps and I enter the library and you are tan and your cheeks are fuller than they
were a month ago and I like you like this. Nourished. Bronzed. Here.
I wave at you. Totally normal. “Welcome back!”
You raise a hand. Robot stiff. As if I never touched your Lemonhead. “Hi,
Joe. Hope you had a good holiday. Dolly’s in History and we’re pretty backed
up.”
That’s it? That’s all I get?
Yes. Yes, it is. You’re already hiding in your computer and I follow your
orders and plod to History and I’m worried about you, Mary Kay. Did your rat
catch you gazing longingly at the Bruce Springsteen lyrics I posted, the ones you
liked at 2:14 A.M. Phoenix time? I know you can’t hug me but it’s me. It’s you.
Don’t you want to know how I’m doin’?
The day is flying by and soonish, it’s time for lunch, but you eat alone in your
office with Whitney and Eddie. I should be in there with you, catching up,
reminding you of what it’s like to be with me, but I can’t push. I have to
remember that you’ve had no privacy for several weeks. You were drowning in
dirty dishes and Nomi’s anxiety about her college applications—her first pick is
NYU, thanks, Instagram!—and then you were the dutiful daughter. This isn’t
about me. Right now, you’re making up for lost solitude.
I take my lunch break in the garden because it’s cold but it’s not New York
City cold and finally, here you are, rubbing your shoulders. No jacket.
“Aren’t you freezing?”
I swallow the beef in my mouth. “Nah,” I say. “Hey, how was your trip? How’s
your dad?”
Now would be a good time for you to tell me about the other dad in your life
but you don’t. “My dad’s much better, thank you, so that’s a relief… And at least
we had a nice Thanksgiving before he fell…” Your holiday was not nice, Mary
Kay. You and the Meerkat looked like marionettes with guns behind your backs
in your family photos. “Anyway,” you say, as if I’m just another Mothball. “How
about you? Did you have a good holiday?”
The worst part about holidays is the way people talk about them when
they’re over and you know what I did on Thanksgiving. You saw my pictures.
You liked them. I follow you and you follow me and the rules of Genesis are like
the rules of jinx. I am allowed to call you out. “Well, as you saw, it was mostly
me and some books, which is to say it was perfect.”
You look down at your lap. “I told my dad about you.”
I put down my fork. You love me, more than you did a month ago. “Oh,
really?”
“Yeah… I don’t think I ever spent that much time alone with him. I kept
thinking that you two would really get along…”
You missed me and I smile. “I’m just glad he’s okay. I read about
osteochondral lesions. They sound tough.”
I am such a good fucking guy! I don’t make it about me and you’re talking
lesions and moving trucks and I’m here for all of it and then you touch your
hair. You want to make it about me. “You really would like my dad, Joe. He’s old
school, obsessive about his books, all of his Tom Clancys lined up in
alphabetical order. He airs them out and wipes them down them once a week.
All these years, I never knew that about him. I thought you’d get a kick out of
it.”
I feel for you, Mary Kay. I thought I suffered. But you were forced to be
inside of your marriage for a solid week. You played nurse. You dealt with a
move and how did you get through it? You daydreamed about me. You stored up
anecdotes for me and now you feed them to me and I’m happy that you didn’t
tell me how you’re doin’ in a stupid text. Sometimes you love someone so much
that you can’t bear a taste or a text because only this kind of moment will do.
Shared air. Stillness on a love seat. Your silence is heavy with what you don’t
say, that you want me to be with you the next time you fly away. I love that you
love me. I love that you came out into the cold to see me and we do belong
together, but not like this. Married. Buried.
I close the lid on my box of beef and broccoli. “Hey,” I say. “Do you mind if I
cut out early?”
It’s fun to watch you fight the devastation in your body. “Big plans tonight?”
I remember Phil’s first tweet today: Xmas lights. Why? No. Aren’t we over this?
IsItJanuaryYet# Peace#
“Well, I special-ordered Christmas lights last month…” It’s not a lie. It’s a
pre-truth. “It’s kind of embarrassing but I love to string lights.”
I am the anti-Phil and I am your light. “That’s so great.”
“Lights are a more-is-more situation, you know?”
You squeeze your paper cup. I know it’s hard, being with the wrong person
when the right person is right here.
I make a pit stop at Cooley Hardware to pick up lights and luck is on my
side—No Seamus!—and I get home and there’s a box on my front porch. My
serotonin surges and Jeff Bezos is a rich man because he knows how much we all
just love to get a present, even if it’s a present we bought for ourselves.
I hang my lights—take that, Phil—and I go inside, down to my Whisper
Room. I open my present to myself, but it’s really a present for you: Basic Text,
6th edition. Author: Narcotics Anonymous.
I’m reading Phil’s bible for the same reason that you dipped your toes in the
Cedar Cove series after we first spoke on the phone. You wanted to know what
I’m all about. You wanted to speak my language. I don’t need a fucking self-help
book, Mary Kay, but I will do whatever it takes to help you to follow your
fucking heart and end your dead marriage. It’s the giving season and tonight, I
bequeath my time to you, to us.
I want to write to Dr. Nicky and tell him to read the Basic Text because it made
me realize what we had in common way back when: addiction to toxic women.
I was up all night and my eyes are bloodshot and puffy—perfect—and I
choose an old sweater. Lucky for me, your husband likes to tweet about his NA
meetings so I’m here, in the parking lot of Grange Hall. I will meet your
husband and pretend to be a fellow addict slash Sacriphil super fan boy. My plan
is simple in theory—befriend him, needle him about his failure to produce
another “Shark,” make him become the worst possible version of himself and
undo everything he learned from his “bible.” When I’m in Phil’s head, when he’s
in peak monster woulda-coulda-shoulda-been-and-still-could-if-not-for-the-
damn-family mode, well, you’ll have no choice but to end your sham marriage. If
I do a good job, you’ll watch Phil come to terms with the fact that he’s not a
fucking husband and he’s not a fucking father.
He’s a fucking rock star, man.
And you’ll feel justified in leaving him. But if I fuck up…
I light another Marlboro Red and I’m pacing the way addicts do before they
go to a first meeting. This is risky. You could find out what I’m up to, but you
started this, Mary Kay. You didn’t tell me about him and the best Christmas
gifts never come easy. If and when the three of us are in the same room, I’ll tell
you the truth, that I went to a meeting for the same reason a lot of people who
aren’t addicts go to these meetings: It was the holidays. I was lonely.
Right now, I have to focus on the mission, like a dad driving all over the city
to find that stupid fucking Cabbage Patch Kid. I hear Sacriphil music in the
distance and it’s him. He’s in his jalopy and he’s pulling into the parking lot,
rocking out to his own song. I breathe. I can do this. Christmas is about miracles
and transformation—Hi, I’m Jay and I’m addicted to heroin—and Phil gets out of
his jalopy and I run through Jay’s story: I hurt my back in a car accident, got
Oxy, got hooked on Oxy, tried heroin cuz it was cheaper and yesterday… well, I
won’t tell my story today—this is one of those less is more situations—but a good
actor prepares and the Basic Text has good advice for all of us: Find new
playgrounds. Find new playthings.
Here comes my plaything now, still a little porky and sunburnt from his time
in Phoenix. I freeze up like a starfucker and stare at him as I try not to stare at
him. That’s Phil DiMarco! Look at him open the door! Stars: They’re just as
fucked up as us! He disappears into the building and I cough all that crap out of
my lungs and pat down my mothy sweater. This is it. I’m going in.
My new playground is smaller than I expected: There are two rich ladies—one
likes Kahlúa, one likes Percocets—a couple of court-ordered resentful old rich
people, and a trio of court-ordered teens. A friendly thirtysomething woman
picks up a glazed donut. “Hey,” she says. “You ever go to this meeting before?”
“No,” I say. “You?”
She smirks. She wears two diamond engagement rings—Jesus—and she nods
at your husband who is on the other side of the room, just as bombastic in
person as he is on his infomercial. He points at his freshly shaven face, laughing
at his own terrible joke. “Ya get it, man? I shaved the beard and now it’s growing
on me!”
“Fair warning,” says the woman with two diamonds. “Some people in this
group like to talk. A lot. But hey, at least it’s not boring.”
Soon we’re taking our seats and the rat is so close and the spirit of Christmas
is alive in me—it is the most wonderful time of the year—and I introduce myself
—my voice is shaky but that’s normal—and nobody pushes me to spill my guts.
Good.
Mrs. Kahlúa talks about how much she loves Kahlúa, how hard it is to go to
holiday parties, and Princess Percocets gripes about her self-righteous daughter,
and finally, your rat raises his hand. “Can I butt in?”
He rubs the back of his grimy head and takes a long, ten-months-pregnant
kind of pause and I try not to picture you on top of him, grabbing his hair until
he finally cuts into all that overblown, selfish silence he imposed on us. “So the
wife finally got back from Thanksgiving. Felt like she was gone forever.” No shit,
Shercock, but this is pretty exciting. I get to hear Phil’s side of the story, a side
even you don’t get to see. “But it’s like we’re right back to fighting the way we
were in Phoenix. It was rough. Thing One was in a mood, man.” I know we can’t
name names but seriously, Phil? Thing One. “Me and Thing Two… we couldn’t do
right by her…” Thing Two is Nomi but Nomi is not a thing. “Thing One was all
over Thing Two about some book she’s reading…” Oh come on, Phil, the book is
Columbine. “And she was all over me about my cigs.” Cigs. “I’m not gonna say that
cigarettes are good for you, but you know what else isn’t good for you? Being
nagged.”
I start to clap and stop. Starstruck. Fan boy. Phil winks. Thanks, man.
“Thing One’s got daddy issues but lately it’s outta control…” I’ve made you
think about things, Mary Kay. I’ve made you grow. “The whole damn week, she’s
on me to participate in the family. I try to ‘participate,’ man, I do. A local bar
invites me to play…”
Bullshit. He tweeted that bar and four other bars. He invited himself.
“I score us a table and they’re cool with my kid and Thing One flies off the
handle. We don’t want to go to a bar! My dad can barely walk right now! Thing Two is
seventeen! Man, I know I’m not supposed to say it…” Say it, Phil. Say it! “But
Thing One… she botched the turkey, she can’t stay off Instagram and for
someone who loves to read so much… well she ain’t reading lately…”
You love me too much to concentrate and soon, we’ll be on my sofa reading
together.
“And Thing Two is seventeen going on twelve. She needs to grow up… All
she does is ride her bike around on her own in la-la land…” Phil shakes his head.
“We used to be a dynasty… I was her king. She was my queen. We were heroes…”
Another pregnant pause and the woman with two rings bites her lip. She’s not
alone. Your poor husband is a recurring joke, Mary Kay. “I didn’t cave,” he says.
“But the thing is… yes, I fucking did cave, man. I didn’t get to play for a whole
week.” Lie. “I know I’ve said it before…” Say it again. Please. “But man, is this it?
Is this my life?” He shakes it off. “Never mind,” he says. “You’d have to be in my
shoes to… Never mind.”
The woman with two diamonds starts talking about her two engagements
and Phil isn’t listening. He takes his phone out and he’s typing and tapping his
foot and is he… is he trying to turn this woman’s sob story into a song right in
front of her? I want to call 911 and report a theft but the meeting is ending and
it’s time to mingle and I’m nervous again. We’re milling around, eating more
donuts, and your rat heads outside and if I want your present to be ready for
Christmas, I have to do this.
I put down my donut. I chase your rat.
He’s on the way to his car and I’m catching up and I can do this. I am JAY
ANONYMOUS: SACRIPHIL FAN BOY. I clear my throat—nervous, he’s a
rocker—and I scratch my head—nervous, he’s your husband—and he opens the
door and I fake a stumble—ouch—and he looks over his shoulder and laughs at
me, just a little, and I apologize, just a little, and I pull out a Marlboro Red and
I’m stuttering when I begin my first official outreach to the Phil DiMarco.
“ ’Scuse me,” I say. “Do you… Do you have a light?”
He leans against his car like he did in the promo photos for Moan and Groan
and I wish I was wearing a Sacriphil T-shirt but what can I say, Mary Kay? It’s a
busy time of year and last-minute shopping is tough.
“Hey, man,” he says. “You all right?”
I nod, too starstruck to speak, and he passes me his lighter—Zippo with a
naked girl, what a good dad—and I drop it on the pavement and he picks it up
and lights my cigarette and thank God you can’t see us right now. I look at him
like he’s the Arc of the Fucking Covenant and I breathe in, out. “Wow,” I say.
“I’m having a butt with Phil DiMarco.”
His face is a Shrinky Dink in the oven, expanding, brightening. “Oh shit,” he
says. “We got us a Philistan.”
“I’m so sorry. Shit. I know we’re not supposed to use our names.”
“Nah, man, it’s cool.”
“I had to come up to you, man. The whole time in there, I was like, I can’t
move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath!” He likes to be quoted—all writers are
pathetic that way—and he laughs and this is painful, but this is the only way for
me to get you what you really want: me. “I thought I was tripping. Phil
DiMarco, the most horrifically underrated rock star of all time, is ten feet away
from me and man, I’m just… man.I drop my cigarette—nerves on top of nerves
—and he offers me one of his and I take it. “I can’t believe I’m smoking a butt
with Phil DiMarco.”
“You’re hard-core,” he says. “What about you? You got a name?”
“Jay,” I say, happy I worked so hard on my character.
He hawks a loogie on the pavement. “No worries,” he says. “It’s not like you’re
blowing my cover. Everyone knows who I am. What’s your name again?”
I literally just said it but then again he doesn’t even know the name of his
daughter’s favorite book. “I’m Jay,” I say. “Jesus Christ, man. What are you even
doing here?”
“Same thing you are, man. Day by day.”
“But you’re you. I mean… come on. You don’t need this. That shit you said
about Phoenix. How do you even stand it?”
He chuckles. “Yeah, Phoenix sucked.”
“See, what you said in there made me think. A few years back, you told Mojo
that you couldn’t go six hours without touching a guitar…” I smile. “Or getting
laid.”
He laughs at his own old bad joke. “Well, that was then, man. Things
change.”
He doesn’t really think things change and he’s right. They don’t. I smoke my
butt and I hope I don’t get cancer from these fucking things. I can’t stand the
idea of dying before you, leaving you here to miss me. He blows a smoke ring
and I try and fail—perfect—and I ash on a pile of old freebie newspapers
because he ashed on it first but that’s a fire hazard, Mary Kay. Your husband is a
fire hazard.
“So,” I say. “Can I ask… Are you working on anything now?”
“Hell yeah,” he says. “Always.”
“Good, cuz I am dying for a new album. And a tour. People say it’s not gonna
happen… I’m like fuck yes it is. Phil DiMarco is gonna come back in a big way.”
He picks at his dirty fingernail. “You can’t push. Every album comes when it
comes.”
Spoken like a true procrastinator and I nod. “I never thought I’d get to meet
you cuz you don’t tour anymore.”
“We don’t tour right now, he says. Boom. “Your album’s on the way, I
promise.”
“I gotta ask. Were you… were you writing a song in there?”
“You bet I was. See, as an artist, I go to these meetings for the pathos. Not to
sound like a douche…” As if the disclaimer doesn’t classify him as a douche. “But
as an artist I get more out of it. Ya got a beast in you, ya gotta feed the beast. I
get a lotta good material in there. Tons.”
“That’s so rad.” I was right. He’s a thief. “You know, I’m thinking I might go
get a guitar… a Schecter…” Find a new plaything. “You can say no… but is there
any way I can hit you up for advice?”
He gives me his number and says he has to get home as he quotes his own
song—I got a crate in a barrel and a barrel in a gun. “Here’s my advice about
finding a good Schecter…” Pregnant pause. “Get a Gibson, man.”
I laugh as if that was clever and he starts his car and did I do it? Did I get in
his head?
I tune in to his show at midnight, and sure enough, he’s wailing about the
holidays, pining for the good old days when he had time to focus on his true
calling, his music. The man is in pain, Mary Kay. And you can’t make him
happy. Listen to his “show” and look at his body. He has a Sacriphil tattoo. He
bled for that band. He took a needle for that band. But your name’s not inked
on his skin, and it’s time for you both to realize it.
11
The next day, I walk into the library and I slink into the back without saying
hello but an hour later, you find me. You’re frisky. You put your hands on Dolly
and you tell me that Nomi wants to get a kitten for Christmas.
“Are you allergic or anything?”
“No, I love cats, but she’s going away soon…” You look right at me. “Do you
like cats?” You are so hot for me that you are planning our life together and you
squeeze Dolly. Nervous. “I ask because our friends… they have three kittens, so
you know, you could get one too.”
You want us to adopt kittens together and I smile. “I love cats. It’s tempting.”
You pull your hands off Dolly. “Well, it’s something to think about. Our cats
would be siblings.” You fiddle with your belt. “Well,” you say. “Let’s both think
about it, yeah?”
I give you a yeah and already my plan is working.
The next day, I go to a meeting and Phil bitches to me… about cats. “Cats are
cool. But do I need one more thing to take care of? Already I don’t have enough
time to play.”
In a normal situation, you can’t advise someone to leave their spouse because
when they don’t, you become that asshole who talked shit about the spouse. But
nothing about our situation is normal and I am #TeamPhil. “You don’t need a
cat,” I say. “You need a studio.”
“Tell that to the wife. Man, we’re so close to freedom. My kid’s on her way to
college in a few months and the wife wants to tie me down with a new cat.
“Does she not… I don’t wanna overstep… but does she not get who you are?”
He flicks his cigarette into a pile of leaves. “Nope,” he says. “Not lately.”
The next day I march into the library and walk into your office. “Okay,” I
say. “Let’s get cats. I’m in.”
You fix your eyes on your computer screen. He fights you every step of the
way and I am on #TeamYou. “Well,” you say. “That was fast. Do you have a name
picked out?”
I sit in my chair and you scratch your collarbone and I latch my hands
behind my head and smile. “Riffic,” I say. “Little Riffic Goldberg.”
“Ah,” you say. “I do love me some suffixes.”
Suffix sounds like sex and you are the smartest, sexiest woman on the planet
and you are the fan to my tastic, showing me a picture of your favorite kitten,
the one with a natural tuxedo. “Look at this little guy. He’s all dressed up and he
will find somewhere to go.”
I tell you his name should be Licious and you groan—anything but Licious—
and I dream of a long slow Saturday, you and me naming our kittens. “Well,” I
say. “There’s three of them, right?”
You nod. “Yes.”
“Okay, so after work, let’s go pick up Riffic, Tastic, and Licious.”
But you throw your empty coffee cup in the trash and tell me that now
Nomi’s on the fence. You’re doing it again, you’re protecting your rat. You tell
me that Nomi wants a kitten, not a cat, and kittens grow up fast. You shrug.
“There’s no way around it. It’s the fate of all kittens.”
You’re a fatalist and you need to believe in fate. Me. I pick up one of your
tchotchkes and I make a proposal. “How about I get all three kittens, Tastic,
Riffic, and Licious and then, when you’re ready, you can take one.”
“You’re so sweet, Joe…” Yes, I am. “But three cats… what about your
furniture?”
“I have plenty of room. And I can get the toys, scratching posts…”
I am a homebody and Phil is a home-wrecker and you fiddle with your pen.
“I always had this idea that when I had my bookshop… well, every bookshop
needs a cat.”
“Just like every bodega. How about this? I keep one. You keep one. And
Licious will live in your Bordello.”
You practically purr at me. “Well, on one condition. The little guy in the tux
cannot be named Licious. You can’t do that to me, Joe. You have to give up on
that name.”
I purr right fucking back. “Giving up’s not really my style, Mary Kay.”
Three days later, my arms are all scratched up and I am a man with three cats. I
am also the owner of a Gibson and I sneeze—my body will adjust to the dander—
and Phil waves his hands. Frantic. “C’mon, man. I don’t wanna catch what you
got.”
He was grumpy in the meeting and he’s grumpy after the meeting. I tell him
I’m sorry and he shrugs it off. “It’s not you,” he says. “The wife’s holding a grudge
about the kitten thing. Showing me videos of the kittens.”
I send you my videos and you love that I don’t post them online, that they’re
only for you, for me, for us. And now I find out that you show the videos to him
—ha—and he takes a drag of his cigarette. “All right,” he says. “I gotta split.”
He goes home to you—the injustice—and I go home to Riffic and Licious
and Tastic and they’re not just exceptionally cute. They also give us a reason to
communicate around the clock. You send me links to cat toys and you’re “too
busy with Christmas” to come over and meet our future cats and I’m a busy man,
pushing Phil to man up and put his music first. Christmas is getting closer—every
day Phil is a little bit closer to the edge—and every day I send you photos,
mostly of Licious. You tell me that you’re going to die of cuteness and somehow
I go to sleep and the next day, I go to a meeting and Phil spends the whole time
writing a song in his phone about how his wife is riding him about cats and
bookstores.
I go home after the meeting and play with my kittens and I check Phil’s
tweets.
Can’t fucking wait to tour. Philistans# Peace#
Did someone say SacriPHIL surprisealbum# ChristmasIsCanceled# Peace#
Fixin’ to put another shark inside your shark, Philistans… Peace#
What do you do when your wife drives you crazy? Asking for a friend Peace#
Licious and Tastic and Riffic are so cute—they’re scratching the Sacriphil
albums I bought on eBay—but I can’t just sit here. Not tonight. I want to see
you. I want to see what your marriage looks like when it’s imploding. I put on a
hoodie and I pick up my binoculars and I’m out the door.
It’s cold in the woods and it’s dark in the woods and your windows are bright
and I see you, Mary Kay. You’re turning the pages of a book and your rat walks
into the room and you don’t look up. You flip him the bird and he slams the
door and you are mine. You don’t love him anymore. You love me.
The blow comes out of nowhere.
Something hard hits the center of my back. Binoculars: Down. Me: Down.
The blow comes again: A boot in my back and heavy breathing—my poor ribs—
and then another kick. POW. I am on my side and I taste blood and another
kick knocks me into a rock. Roots punish my back and the boot punishes my
front and I know that boot. I’ve seen that boot. A heavy, militant-but-also-fuck-
me Sorel.
In a wheeze, I get her name out of my mouth. “Melanda?”
12
“I knew it!” Melanda grips a pink can of pepper spray, pink as your mother’s
Cadillac. “I knew you were a pervert the day we met,” she says. “Two words:
Woody. Allen.”
Fuck. Fuck. “Melanda, no, this isn’t what you think.”
She grunts. “For the last fucking time, you don’t tell me what I think. I know
what you’re doing, pervert.”
“You’re wrong. Let me… please listen to me.”
She grinds her big angry boot into my chest and there will be a bruise. “Aw,
do you want me to listen to you, Joe? Are you gonna tell me you were out here
bird-watching? Are you gonna tell me that you didn’t even know that Nomi lives
in this house?”
Nomi. No. Not her. NO. I can’t breathe and I am the bird, dying in the dirt.
“Melanda, this isn’t what you think.”
“He loves books! He adores film. And he does love birds. Birds as in teenage
girls.”
My vocal cords freeze up on me. The boot. The lie. “No, Melanda. No, no, I
was not looking at Nomi.”
“Don’t even try, pervert.” She presses a number on her phone and she thinks
I’m a pervert and you don’t come back from a pedo accusation and I am not a
fucking pedophile and Melanda may be skilled in the art of self-defense, but she
has a lot to learn about offense. I grab her by the Sorel and I yank. Hard. She
goes down and her phone goes down and I clamp my hand over her big vicious
mouth. I pick up the closest rock.
Crunch.
I’m still shaking, Mary Kay. My attacker is locked up downstairs in my Whisper
Room and this sort of shit isn’t supposed to happen in Cedar Fucking Cove. I
moved here to be happy. I moved here to make peace, to find peace, and now my
ribs are flaring, hot like McRibs.
My kittens are useless and clueless, meowing and playing like nothing ever
happened—thanks, fuckers—and I pick up my phone with my trembling hand. I
set up security cameras downstairs so that I have eyes on her, and she’s still
asleep for now.
I didn’t ask to be tangled up in your Blues, Mary Kay. The situation is calm
for now, but I can’t keep her here forever—she’s not a fucking cat—and I can’t
let her go—and I don’t want to be the guy who killed your best friend. (Even
though it would be self-defense if one thinks of the reputation as part of the
self, which it is.)
At least I have her phone—thanks for the thumbprint access, Apple!—and
I’m getting a Master’s in All Things Melanda. She’s been scheming to move to
Minnesota to chase down the only decent guy she ever dated, so I informed the
school that she was taking a leave to go out of town for some job interviews.
They didn’t seem surprised—she fights with everyone at that school—and I had
to give her an alibi, Mary Kay. We live in America and a single, relatively
attractive woman can’t just “disappear,” because there’s nothing women love
more than stories about missing women.
But she does have to go, Mary Kay. As it turns out, your “best friend” is a
double agent. She’s always whining to you about her old friend Netty—they met
on Melanda’s semester abroad—and you are supportive. But then she talks to
Netty… about you. We have to end their toxic friendship—we can’t have Netty
calling Interpol—so I send Netty a text from Melanda’s phone, a text meant for
you.
So I’m horrible lol but once again I’m done with Netty. She’s whining about her
birthday like she’s in sixth grade and it’s like Netty honey get a life you know lolol
horrible I know.
Netty got the message—oops!—and she snaps right back: I think this was
meant for Mary Kay. Have a nice life. Block. Mute. Bye.
Netty unfollows Melanda in all the stupid places—that’s one achievement
unlocked!—and she shares a passive-aggressive meme about fake friends and
maybe I could do this for a living. Take your phone, fix your life.
My ribs are cooling off and in a sick way, I’m happy that Melanda came after
me. See, Mary Kay, you never told me that we have an enemy in our midst. She’s
been campaigning against me for weeks—I knew it—and you always defend me,
and women are on guard when it comes to men—I get it—but never mind me,
Mary Kay. You should see what she says about you. I screenshot one of the worst
entries in her notepad app:
MK and those skirts honestly we get it you have legs lol and MK shows up with no
call bc I live alone as if I have no life HELLO I HAVE A LIFE—and I know you love
her, but this woman is not your Friend. This is why I don’t try too hard to keep
up with Exclamation Point Ethan, Mary Kay, and this is why Friends is a lie.
Most people wouldn’t like their friends if they got into their phones.
You would want me to have empathy for Melanda, and okay. She does try to
be a better person. She bought nine meditation apps—they’re not working—and
you warn her that Alice & Olivia are like her drug dealers and she sends you
excerpts of her food diary—NINE SAFEWAY DONUT HOLES I HATE
EVERYONE BUT HATE ME THE MOST RIGHT NOW GRRRR FUCK YOU
PATRIARCHY FUCK YOU SAFEWAY—and you rightfully tell her that she isn’t
fat—fuck you, United States of Body Dysmorphia—but there’s a lot you don’t
know, Mary Kay.
Would you still have empathy for Melanda if you knew that she manipulated
two unpaid, uncredited interns into building her feminist incubator? That’s
right, Mary Kay. Just ask the interns, Eileen and DeAnn. Your best friend
doesn’t support other women. She erases them.
And she wants to erase us too.
Last week, you told her not to give up on the dream of Minnesota and she
LOLed.
Lol MK I’m not moving. Never seeing Harry again.
You just sounded so excited about going there. You never know… maybe you will
Right. Kind of like you and your new little boyfriend… see we DO know lol
That’s not fair. That was… that was one kiss.
LOL MK. Face it. I’m not moving to MN. BI is home. You’re not leaving Phil. He’s
home. These are facts. This is why we drink our wine LOL
But she’s not honest with you, Mary Kay. After she blew you off with an LOL,
she sent two follow-up emails to HR reps in Minneapolis. She’s allowed to make
her moves but she discourages you from making your moves. She suffers and so
she wants you to suffer and now she’s wide awake, pounding on the glass walls of
my Whisper Room, screaming like a bad actress in a B movie. I crack my
knuckles. I can do this. I can take on her voice. And I have to because the two of
you text all fucking day. You type. Same way you do every fucking morning.
How’s life?
IT IS SEVEN A.M. WHY DON’T YOU WOMEN LEAVE EACH OTHER
ALONE? I breathe. This is the upside to this mess. I get to change your life. I
type.
Sweetie omg big news. Fingers crossed. I’m in a mad rush to Minneapolis for a job
interview yeeee and I already talked to a couple guys on Bumble lolol who knows but
yeeeeee lolol xoxo
My heart is pounding, the sun is up. Did I do a good job? Do you buy me as
Melanda? Here come the dots—please, God, you owe me—and here comes your
response.
Congrats!
It’s a win and I needed a win and you text again, sharing your own news—
you’re getting a haircut today. I put Melanda’s phone in my pocket—she told
you, Mary Kay, she’s in a mad rush—and it will be satisfying to see you growing,
weaning off your “sister,” but now it’s time for the hard part.
I have to go and face my attacker.
When I get downstairs, I don’t look in the cage and my Whisper Room was
never supposed to be a cage. I stand in front of my TV and Melanda’s behind
me, locked up and screaming—You’re a fucking pervert—but I owe it to you to try
and make her see the light. She spits at the glass and it turns out the Whisper
Room isn’t actually soundproof, which means that I hear every word of her
abuse. “You are a fucking pedophile and a psychopath and a fucking sociopath
and you will pay for this, you sicko. Let me out. Now.”
Ha! That is not how we catch flies, Melanda, and I sigh. “Well, make up your
mind. Which is it? What am I, exactly? All three or just one?”
I sit in my chair and I take out my flash cards. She is the teacher but I am the
professor and I was up all night making a lesson plan. She bashes the glass wall
with her fists. “PEDOPHILE!”
I sigh and shake my head. “Wrong.”
“Fuck you.”
“Come on, Melanda. You’re smarter than that.”
“I know, Joe. I know about your dirty Bukowski book.”
You must have told her I thought Nomi might like Bukowski over the phone
because I didn’t see that in your texts. “For God’s sake, Melanda, you should
know that reading Bukowski is a good way to learn about vile men. You’re an
English teacher.”
She blinks fast and pivots. “For your information, I’m actually trained to spot
pedophiles and using a mom as a conduit, well, that’s the oldest trick in the
book. Obviously.”
“I think your meditation apps are making you paranoid.”
“Make all the snide jokes you want, sweetie. I know what I saw. You’re a
monster. You are a pedophile and you will be the one who winds up behind
bars.”
“Moving on,” I say. And I pick up my flash cards. “I found your diary in the
notepad app on your phone…”
“No. No you didn’t.”
She bangs on the glass and I choose one of my favorites. “Date,” I say.
“November first. ‘MK calls and expects me to pick up as if I don’t have a LIFE
but when I call HER does she pick up? Nope! Too busy with her familyyyyyyy.
Try being alone you mommy whiner!’ ”
She makes earmuffs. “Stop it.”
I pick another flash card. A real gem. “Date: October twenty-seventh.”
“You are a child molester, you sicko. These are notes. I get PMS. That is
private.
I maintain my composure and I read Melanda’s diary. “ ‘Sometimes I just
wish I could MURDER MK so smug like she’s first woman to ever have a crush
at work GET A LIFE GRRR and if Nomi was my kid like just no. Be a role
model STOP FLIRTING YOU SLUT HE’S NOT IN LOVE WITH YOU NOT
EVERY GUY IS SO CRAZY ABOUT YOU and buy some fucking pants
WHERE IS MY PERIOD FUCK YOU WORLD.’ ”
“Stop it, Joe. You have no idea. Female friendships… they’re complicated.”
I go into her texts and open the history of Melanda and Seamus. “Huh,” I say.
“Is that why you drunk-text Seamus asking who was a better lay back in high
school?”
She spits at me, as if I’m the one who texts Shortus—I still can’t believe you
slept with him, it stings, it does—and I sigh. “I’m not judging you, Melanda. I’m
just trying to help you see that sometimes… you’re wrong.”
“FUCK YOU, PERVERT.”
I pick another card. “November fourth. ‘I would be living in Minneapolis by
now if not for Married Kay. I HATE HER. Nomi should be living with ME and
UGHGHGHGH.’ Married Kay,” I say. “Clever.”
She looks at me. “You won’t make me think I’m the bad guy, you sicko. You
were stalking Nomi. I saw.
“Huh,” I say. “You know, Melanda, I guess what hurts the most, besides my
rib cage…”
She rolls her eyes. An emoji come to life.
“I get it. This isn’t an easy place to be single. Hell, I live next door to a family.
You and I… we’re in the minority. You try to do good… I try to do good, but you
decided that because I’m single, there must be something wrong with me.”
“And I was right. You’re a pedo.”
“Melanda, I am not a pedophile. But after reading your notepad, I gotta say, I
do wonder what you were doing in the woods…”
“Oh you sicko, I was looking out for Nomi.”
“Ah.”
“The Bukowski… the Woody Allen… I knew it then and obviously I really
know it now. I see you.”
I pick another flash card. “ ‘Feels so freaking good to tell DeAnn and Eileen
that I will be the one taking the credit for the incubator. These young girls are
SO FUCKING ENTITLED and someone needs to smack them down because
they have NO IDEA how hard it is to be a woman in the real world.’ ”
She sits up straight as if there’s a book on her head. “What’s your point?”
“You don’t see the hypocrisy? ‘Women supporting women.’ You’re literally
erasing the women who support you.
“I am not the one on trial here.”
“You called me a pedophile. You attacked me but look at you. What about
you? You hate your best friend and you’re stealing credit from your fellow
sisters.
She folds her arms, indignant. “Nice try, pervert, but you don’t know the first
thing about my life. Eileen and DeAnn are college kids. I’m not ‘erasing’ their
work. They don’t have a fucking clue about how hard it is to be a single woman
in a school system. Let them try going into a school every day where everyone
treats you like a leper slash whore because you’re not married. And they think
you should just be able to work every day all day because you don’t have a ‘life,’
like there’s something inherently wrong with you if you’re alone.”
“Christ, Melanda. Just admit it. They’re wrong about you and you were
wrong about me.”
“Well, unlock the door and let me go and I’ll know for sure that you’re not a
predator.”
“Melanda, I wish I could trust you, I do, but I wasn’t grooming Nomi and you
attacked me and this is on you.”
She bangs on the glass, which hurts her hand more than it hurts me. “Let me
out. Now.”
Her phone is in my pocket and it buzzes. And it’s you: When do you fly to
MN?! So excited for you!
Melanda drops her fists. “Is it MK?” She’s trembling now, shaking, and her
sizable vocabulary is boiled down to a single word. “SICKO!”
I write back cuz this is what you gals do. Leaving in a few hours!
Melanda knocks on the glass. Softer now. She’s a teacher again. “Joe, look…
I’m sorry. I was paranoid and I did judge you, okay? I really thought you were
just latching onto MK to get to Nomi… I mean MK is old.”
You’re not old.
“Joe,” she says. “I mean it. I’m sorry. And if you let me go… Look, you’re right.
We both overreacted. And no one has to know about this. Now that we’re
talking… well, you’re right. We are on the same side. We can be.”
I wasn’t born an hour ago and I sigh. “There’s a remote on the bed.”
She kicks the wall as if she’s the only one trapped. “Fuck you.”
And I gotta say, Mary Kay. I’m a little offended because I’m the victim here. I
have gone out of my way to be Mr. Fucking Good Guy and now because of her
my Whisper Room is a cage and Dr. Nicky is right. You can’t control other
people. You can only control your own actions. Melanda doesn’t deserve my
help, but lucky for her, when I see anyone trapped in a cage, even if it’s their
fault, well, what can I say? I’m a good fucking Samaritan.
She screams for help and I nod at the remote on the bed. “Go ahead,” I say.
“Pick it up. I have a project for you.”
She is quivering—it could be an act—and she picks up the remote and the
screen lights up and there they are, all of the movies in her iTunes account. See,
Mary Kay, Melanda obsessively takes inventory of every calorie she puts into her
body. But she needs to take that analytical obsession in a different direction.
She needs to think about the movies she watches over and over again. I try to
explain this to her but she is the same old dog. “Oh God,” she sighs. “You’re not
a pervert. You’re a psychopath.”
“You call me a psycho? I’m the ‘pervert.’ Melanda, would you look at the size
of your Woody Allen collection? You own more of his movies than I do!”
“It’s different,” she snarls. “I’m a woman. You have to know the enemy.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “You own Anything Else and Melinda and Melinda and those
aren’t even in the fucking canon.”
She simmers. “Get me out of here.”
“This is a teachable moment, Melanda.”
“This is not happening.”
“Oh, sweetie, I think we’ve established that this most certainly is happening.
“You’re a sick man.”
“Well, like you, I do appreciate Crimes and Misdemeanors.
“That movie belongs to Anjelica Huston,” she snarls. “Not that pig.”
I’m on her phone, pacing, and I wish you could see me right now, Mary Kay.
“Okay,” I say. “Welcome to Melanda’s Movies 101.”
“Stop it.”
“We casually buy movies in the middle of the night, but sometimes our
selections say a lot about our underlying issues.
“No.”
“You like your female bonding stories—Beaches and Romy and Michele and
Terms of Endearment—and you identify strongly with Bridget Jones. You own all
three movies, plus Jerry Maguire and New in Town. Huh. Perhaps the woman you
identify with most is Renée Zellweger.”
She turns red. “There was a fucking sale, you idiot.”
“You’re also a fan of the psycho woman genre. The Hand That Rocks the
CradleSingle White Female…”
She sinks to the floor and she’s crying now, she’s moving forward—yay!—and
I hunker down like a counselor, meeting her at ground level. “Melanda, it’s okay.
We’re both in shock. We both lost our tempers…” It’s not true—I acted in self-
defense—but sometimes you have to lie to your pupil. “We need a minute to
decompress…” And I need a minute to figure out what to do with her. “You
were burnt out. Anyone can see that. So just take this for what it is, some time
to self-reflect. These movies are your bedtime stories, your comfort foods.”
She blows her nose on her shirt. A GIRL IS A GUN. “You’re insane.”
“Forget about me, Melanda. I’m worried about you. You could have gotten
hurt out there…” She looks at me like I’m the crazy one. I carry on. “Look,” I say.
“Every Sunday you plan a detox from your phone. You turn off your
notifications but you never go through with it.”
She bites her lip. Then she clocks the Safeway bag I put in her room while
she was sleeping. “Can you put the TV in here? I have sensitive retinas.”
“Melanda…”
She knows not to press me—she’s a fast learner, Mary Kay—and she juts her
chin at the table. “What’s in the bag?”
“Your favorite thing in the world,” I say. “Safeway donut holes.”
She almost smiles, because what a thrill it is, even under circumstances like
this, to be known for who you really fucking are.
13
I’m at the fucking gym—gotta be seen, gotta normal the fuck up—and Seamus is
working out two feet away, singing along to Kid Fucking Rock, who waxes
nostalgic-pervert about his whiskey-soaked glory days mounting an underage
girl by a lake. Ugh. You and I—well, you and Melanda—are texting and for the
second time in five minutes I plant my kettle bell on the ground to read your
latest missive.
You: Drink this afternoon before your ferry? What time is your flight?
Melanda: Sweetie I wish but I am sooooo busy lol why
Melanda’s phone rings—you’re calling her, oh shit oh shit—and my stomach
muscles quiver like I just finished a fucking Murph and I can’t talk to you—I’m
not her—and I can’t talk now—I’m in a fucking gym. I send you to voicemail and
I type. Fast.
Melanda: lol sorry but I can’t talk, too busy.
You: I get it but can you just talk for two minutes?
NO, MARY KAY, SHE CAN’T.
I type.
Melanda: Lol sooooo sorry but I’m running so late. Is this more Joe drama?
My heart pounds. But this is your pattern.
You: ugh yes and no I just wish we could go get a drink
We wouldn’t be in this fucking mess if you talked to me more than you talk
about me and Shortus yanks his earbuds. “What’s up with you, Chatty Cathy?”
“Nothing,” I say. “My buddy in New York is having issues with his wife.”
Shortus grunts. “Sucks to be him. But that doesn’t mean it should suck to be
you or us, New Guy. Take that shit outside. It’s distracting.”
I’m not New Guy anymore—I live here—and all these fitness junkies are only
here because it provides distraction from their lackluster lives. Shortus reinserts
his earbuds and I wipe down the kettle bell as if my hands are dirty and walk
outside to deal with you.
Melanda: I wish we could go drink too but yeeeeee flight so soon!
You: And yay flight! You know I always root for you even if the idea of you
ACTUALLY moving makes me feel insane. I really felt like a drink today but oh well so
happy for you!
That hurts, Mary Kay. You don’t feel insane about Melanda. You miss me.
And Melanda has no time for you—she’s watching one of her favorite Woody
Allen movies—and you need a reality check.
Aw, sweetie you’ll be okay. Give my love to Phil and Nomi xo
You don’t like the patronizing tone—I know you and I don’t blame you—and
I drive into town and pop into Blackbird—just another normal fucking day, no
woman trapped in my basement—and the fecal-eyed multigenerational family is
here. I bump into the grandfather’s chair and Nancy glares at me as if it wasn’t
an accident and they’re all as cold to me as they are warm to each other.
Motherfuckers, all of them. But at least they saw me. Normal Joe! Nothing to
see!
You’re not Nancy, Mary Kay. You’re not happily married. But you’re not
texting me to meet up for a drink and that’s the problem. I cross the street and
head for the T & C and Melanda’s phone buzzes. It’s you again—shocker—and
you want to know what she’ll wear for the big job interview. This is sadly
normal for you two. She sends you her date outfits and you weigh in—I like the
red—and she argues with you until you eventually give up—What matters most is
how you feel in it. Gotta run. Phil’s home and as we know this is a miracle—but right
now you’re in the salon, you’re bored, and you badger Melanda a second time.
Need pictures! Let me live vicariously through you.
There are so many problems with this statement, Mary Kay. Melanda can’t
send you a selfie. She’s wearing the T-shirt she had on when she attacked me—A
GIRL IS A GUN—and you are too young to feel like the only living you have left to
do is vicarious. I turn the screw.
lol that is so sad. No offense but I feel like the Joe stuff is making you crazy.
You deflect and say that you might get bangs today—just fully become my
mother—and that’s a cry for help but Melanda is a bad friend. I read enough to
know what she would say so I lie to your face: Do it. You can rock bangs! You have
the face for them and you are NOT your mother. Send me pic if you do gotta run so
busy before flight lol
You give a smiley face. Send pics! I’m here! Excited for you, M!
You’re acting out. Cutting your hair instead of coming clean with me just
because your best friend is about to get on a plane. You text again.
Pics please!
Melanda has 24,985 pics in her phone, most of them pictures of her, standing
in front of a full-length mirror. I choose a recent selfie and send it to you with
the shrugging brunette girl emoji—her favorite—and you are typing. A lot. This
isn’t a fucking essay contest. It’s a yes or no question and then here you are.
Wait I thought you returned that blue dress last week? When we were in Seattle?
My heart alarm goes off and no. NO. This would be easier if there weren’t
ten thousand texts between you two and so many fucking pictures of so many
fucking outfits and I close my eyes. WWMD.
Ugh long story but more like get me off this rock no offense lol just excited to go
That was cruel, maybe too cruel and you’re silent. I send another photo of
Melanda in mustard pants and a green sweater—was she trying to be vomit for
Halloween?—and once again: nothing. I studied your conversations and this
isn’t how it goes. Radio silence is bad and it makes me nervous for me, for you.
Are you telling the stylist about what just happened? Did I fuck up?
I type for Melanda: You there? Sweetie I’m sorry just frazzled lol you ok?
More silence. You’re in the salon, in the chair, exactly 1,058 feet away from
me. You have nothing to do but write back to your friend and are you
suspicious? Do you have a sixth sense? Did you run out of the salon? Are you
pounding on Melanda’s front door? So help me God if a selfie that isn’t even
mine brings me down and I can’t take this silence from you. I need to know that
you’re not on a paranoid mission to find your friend. I need to know that you’re
not at the police station, where they’re not used to this kinda thing and I have to
find you because it’s not like you to drop off. I walk toward Firefly and I loiter
by the gazebo—I miss lingering with you—and then the door to the salon opens.
It’s you. And you didn’t get bangs.
You wave at me and I wave at you and I’m holding Melanda’s phone but you
don’t know that. Thank God I took off the FEMALE FIRST case—Smart Joe!—and
you put your hands in your pockets and you’re heading my way and you’re Closer
every second and now you’re here. You touch your hair. “It’s a little much,
right?”
“Well, Mary Kay, you did just step out of a salon.”
You laugh and I’m safe. We’re safe. You don’t suspect anything—I can tell
because if you did, you’d be holding your phone as if it contains evidence—and
you don’t think it’s weird that I’m here because this is Cedar Fucking Cove. We
live here. “Well,” you say. “It’s good to see you, but I should probably get
home…”
Liar. You just told Melanda you want to drink. “Oh come on. How about a
drink?” I took a blow to my ribs for you and I hold your eyes. “Hitchcock?”
You nod. “Hitchcock.”
Your hair bounces when you walk—we are in motion—and I tell you I need a
haircut and you say that Firefly takes walk-ins and I open the door for you and
you thank me and we sit up front by the window. You bring your hands
together.
“Okay,” you say. “I feel bad that things have been so weird.”
I take a sip of my water. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mary Kay. I get it.”
You pick up the menu and act like I meant what I said and you don’t know if
you want wine or coffee and this is new for us. This is a first for us. You’re
ordering a glass of Chablis—last time we drank the hard stuff—and pulling your
turtleneck over your chin. You just said you felt bad that things were weird but
look at you now, such deliberately tiny sips as you run your hands through your
hair, as if I’m blind, as if you’re hungry for a compliment, as if I’m in a position
to tell you that you look good.
You’re a fox. Foxes know they look good. I stare at you. “Hey, are you all
right?”
“Yeah,” you say. “Just tired.” Bullshit. “I woke up on the wrong side of the
bed.” More bullshit and that’s a lazy answer, a child’s answer, a stranger’s
answer. “And I’m a little weirded out. Melanda says she’s headed to Minneapolis
today.”
I’m tired and spent and now I long for you to go back to your bullshit
because YOUR BEST FRIEND IS IN MY FUCKING BASEMENT and why
didn’t I just let you go home? I nod. “Vacation?”
“She says she’s going on a job interview.”
Red flags abound. If you believed Melanda’s story, you would have said that
she’s leaving town, not that she says she’s leaving. I sip my water. You rub your
forehead. “Maybe it’s just me…” Yes. Let’s go with that theory. “She’s always
talked about moving there one day… but the timing feels off. Or maybe I’m off.”
“Maybe we should get something to eat.”
You ignore my suggestion. “Last week, we took one of those quizzes to find
out which Succession character you are…” I know. I already read the texts and I
was surprised that Shortus got Roman. “Anyway,” you say. “Melanda got Ken
Doll as you call him…” God, I love you. You remember everything. “And I got the
evil ogre dad.”
“I don’t think Logan’s an ogre.”
“Ah, so you watched it.”
“Yes I did and Logan Roy is a good man. His spoiled kids are the evil ogres.”
“No,” you say. “Logan Roy is a monster. His kids have issues because of him.”
“That’s a cheat,” I say. “You can’t go through life blaming your childhood for
the way you are as an adult.”
You shut down on me and maybe you and your husband belong in my
Whisper Room with your friend Melanda because maybe you’re all broken
birds, busted beyond repair. You rub your eyes and your hands are trembling
and it’s just a stupid TV show. I have empathy for you. I want to take care of
you. “Hey,” I say. “I think we should get you something to eat.”
“Joe, I’m married.” A beat. “Seriously.”
You did it. You told me the truth. And now you won’t look at me, only at the
table, and I should be relieved—we’re in a new place—but if we go deep right
now, you’re gonna want to hash it all out with Melanda. I pray for a kitchen fire
but it’s no use.
We’re here. Melanda is in my basement. And you’re staring at me. Waiting.
I do what anyone would do at a time like this. I stay silent. I don’t
acknowledge the waiter when he drops the check as if he’s pushing us out the
door and I stare at the table. I remember the Titanic ferry.
You sigh. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, say something.”
“What do you want me to say? I know.”
“You know?”
“Mary Kay, come on. You can’t be all that surprised…”
You sip your water. “How long have you known?”
I don’t want you to think I’m a liar like you and I don’t want you to feel
worse than you already do and you are part fox. You want to feel clever. You like
to feel clever. So I lie to you. “Only for a couple days.”
You snort a little. It’s not becoming. It’s not you. “Wow. I guess I’m a really
good liar.”
“I wanted to be in the dark.”
You want to have all the power and this is why Melanda resents you, because
you think being in a shitty marriage makes you superior. “Joe, let’s not fight.”
“We’re not fighting.” We are fighting.
My heart isn’t in my body. It’s on the table. Right in front of you. Bloody.
Raw. Beating. “Joe,” you say, and you say it the wrong way. “I didn’t come here
to tell you I’m leaving him. This isn’t a date.”
Yes you are and yes it is. “I know that.”
“And I’m not a cheater.”
Yes you are, but things will be different with me. “Of course you’re not.”
“My daughter… if she knew about that night…”
You loved that night and I did too. “I mean it, Mary Kay. I didn’t say a word.”
“And I didn’t come clean because I’m about to make any changes in my life.
And if that were to happen… which isn’t to say that it will happen…” Yes it will!
“Well… that’s why I can’t do this with you on any level. You cannot be the man
who wrecked my marriage.”
Everyone knows that the people in the marriage are the ones responsible for
the marriage, everyone except married people, and I sip my water. “Agree.”
“And I am sorry. I should have told you that night at the pub. Hell, when
‘Italian Restaurant’ came on… I mean why didn’t I just say it then? What’s
wrong with me?”
I tell you there is nothing wrong with you and you tell the waiter that we
want another round—yes!—and you stand—be right back—and I take out
Melanda’s phone and sure enough, there you are.
I’m a horrible person aren’t I?
Melanda ignores you because you need to think for yourself. I put her phone
back in my pocket and a minute later, you come back. Your hair is flatter and
you take a deep breath like you were using one of her meditation apps. “Okay,”
you say. “What do you want to know?”
“It’s none of my business. We’re okay. I’m glad you told me and I know it
wasn’t easy.”
You clench your napkin. “Please stop defending me. You’ve always been up-
front with me. You told me everything about your past…” Everything that
matters. “And I let you think that I’m alone. Remember that first day, when you
said Gilmore Girls…
I remember everything about you. “I remember.”
“I should have said it right then. But I admit it. I wanted to pretend. You
were so… new.”
You want me to say nice things to you but I can’t say nice things or you’ll call
me a marriage wrecker. I nod.
“My husband’s name is Phil. He’s a musician. You might even know who he
is…”
You say it like he’s George Fucking Harrison. “I mean it, you don’t have to do
this.”
“Phil DiMarco… He was the lead singer of Sacriphil.
It’s fun to tell you that I don’t know Sacriphil and you wish I did—foxes like
attention—and you tell me he’s not just your husband. “He’s Nomi’s dad.”
I nod as in I fucking knew that and you hiss at me. “Well? Aren’t you gonna tell
me I’m horrible? I don’t wear a ring and I ran around with you… flirting with
you…”
“Well, all we can do is take it from here.”
“But see, that’s the thing. I’m not here, Joe.” Yes you fucking are. “I can’t be
here.” Yes you fucking can. “Joe, I lied to you, stringing you along, letting you
adopt all those kittens.”
“I wanted those kittens.”
You pull an ice cube out of your drink with your fingers. You hide it in your
palm. “Look, no marriage is perfect…” According to all the people who should
have gotten divorced ten fucking years ago. “But part of the reason I never even
thought about making any change is…” You open your palm. The ice cube
glistens. “Joe,” you say. “I didn’t think someone like you existed.”
I want to kiss you. This is our moment but you bulldoze over it with your
words, telling me how selfish you think you’ve been, as if you wish I would walk
out on you and make it easier for you to stay in your rut. You don’t owe me an
explanation but you want to explain. You love talking to me because you can be
honest with me. You don’t come out and say it, but it’s true. Look at you,
relaxing and thinking out loud. I’m the only one you can talk to. Me.
“See,” you say. “It sounds trite and Melanda would be horrified…You say her
name so casually. You can’t hear the alarms going off in my head because
WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO WITH HER, MARY KAY?
I can’t think about that right now so I breathe. Be here now. “How so?”
“Well,” you say. “I got married so young. I’ve never been through anything
like this… meeting an available man, spending time with him, getting to know
you slowly… And Melanda’s stories about being out there are always so grim.
But you… I built my life around the idea that I wasn’t gonna meet anybody like
you.”
But you did. “Really, Mary Kay, it’s okay. Nothing has changed. We can wait.”
You shake your head no and you fight my collective plural with your
collective plural—We’re a family, Joe, it’s not that simple—and I let you win this
battle. There’s no point in arguing with you right now. Melanda’s only been
“gone” for a few hours, and already you’re changing. Growing. You’re not there
yet, I know. Your maternal instincts have overwhelmed your basic need for love,
for self-preservation, and soon your phone buzzes and it’s him.
We both know it’s time to go.
On the sidewalk, we don’t embrace. You say you should probably go and bells
are ringing on the shop doors as they open and close. The holidays are all
around us. You thank me for being such a grown-up about all this and I tell you
the truth, that I just want you to be happy. You think this is goodbye. You think
this is the end. But I walk away with a smile on my face.
I didn’t think someone like you existed.
Oh, Mary Kay, yes I fucking do exist and deep down you know there is no
going back.
14
I trot downstairs and I’m basking in a cloud of smug. Melanda tried to turn you
against me and she failed and even though I should kill her for putting me in
this position, I admit it, Mary Kay.
I want to fucking gloat. I want the teacher to know she failed.
She greets me and the donut holes in my hand with a blank stare. “Melanda,
there are handcuffs in the drawer of the end table. Cuff yourself to the bedpost
and I’ll bring you a snack.”
She bickers as if I’m not the one in hell right now and my sugar high is
fading. She’s here, she really is—am I fucked?—and she finds the handcuffs—the
cops should have locked her up, not me—but life is a shark that moves forward
—even Phil knows that—and my time away was productive. I saw you—you love
me—and things are different in here too now. Melanda is slower. She’s
slouching, almost apologizing for her inability to get the cuffs on. She’d never
admit it but she gets it now: I’m the fucking boss. And she cuffs up because she
works in a school system. She’s conditioned to respect authoritative ranks so I
enter the room like the professor, like the principal. “Okay, Melanda. What have
we learned today?”
She eyeballs me. “Well, you’re in a good mood. I suppose you saw MK, huh?”
That’s none of your fucking business, Melanda. “I thought we’d start with a
deep dive into friendship narratives.”
“If you’re so obsessed with Mary Kay why didn’t you kidnap her?”
“I didn’t ‘kidnap’ you. You’re not a child. Now come on. Friendship movies.
Romy and Michele Beaches. Let’s dive in.”
I don’t want to be Melanda’s Dr. Fucking Nicky but you know what, Mary
Kay? I do want your friend to cop to her sins. It’s only now that I realize just how
much she hurt us. If you had a real best friend, you would have told me about
your husband several weeks ago and her phone buzzes. It’s you: I did it. I told him.
Calling you now ahahahha
You are a woman of your word and Melanda’s phone is ringing and I send
you to voicemail—what fucking choice do I have?—and now Melanda’s gloating,
smoothing the wrinkles in her sweatpants. “Uh-oh,” she says. “I’d say someone
has a big problem.”
“Yeah, you own a library of movies about female friendship but you’re not a
friend.”
“Oh please,” she says. “Most women our age love Beaches and Romy and
Michele. But I’ll tell you what is unusual. Me sending MK to voicemail. Gimme
the phone.”
“No.”
“Suit yourself. And FYI…” Is she this patronizing with her students? “My
movies are just bedtime stories I turn on after I pop a Xanax, sweetie.”
Her phone buzzes. It’s you: Can you talk? I promise I’ll be fast! Or set a time for
later?
I know you don’t mean to hurt me, Mary Kay, but for fuck’s sake TAKE A
FUCKING HINT. I write back: Sorry I am insane busy lol will call you later!
You don’t write back—you’re mad—and Melanda says that I’m playing with
fire and I hate her, Mary Kay. I hate her for being right. I pop a hole in my
mouth—so help me God if this woman makes me get love handles—and I ask
her if she’s the Hillary Whitney or the C. C. Bloom—and she sighs. “I know you
work the ‘loner’ angle pretty hard, but here’s a heads-up about friends. When I
go out of town, MK waters my plants. We talk, Joe. We talk a lot.”
FUCK MY LIFE. “Are you the Hillary Whitney or the C. C. Bloom?”
“When I need to talk, she picks up. And when she needs to talk, I pick up.”
You text again, as if you’re on her side, not mine—You okay? Can I do
anything?—and I wish you weren’t so kind but I know you have an ulterior
motive—you want to talk about me—and Melanda snaps her fingers at me. “Just
let me talk to her.”
“You know that’s not an option.”
“Be real, sweetie. I’m a single woman. MK is a mom. She checks up on me.
One time, my phone died when I was out with this guy… She has the code to my
place. She was at my condo that night.
Why do you have to be such a good damn friend, Mary Kay? “Let’s focus on
you, Melanda.”
My voice is shaky—how could it not be?—and there’s a crack in my cloud of
smug.
Melanda eyes me. “Do you want to go to prison.”
I may not know what to do about Melanda, but I am not going to prison and
you are not going to Melanda’s fucking condo and you text again—Sorry to be a
stage nine clinger but I really need to talk—and I know, Mary Kay. I get it. But
Melanda is FUCKING BUSY RIGHT NOW and she sprawls out on the futon
and lectures me in her singsong tone about how all women are C. C. Bloom and
Hillary Whitney and all women are Romy and Michele and I need you to not
want to talk to her so I have no choice, Mary Kay. I have to be mean. Well,
Melanda has to be mean.
Sweetie I am so happy you told him but I’m one person trying to take care of myself
and I just… lol you can tell me about your side-piece boyfriend when I get settled into
my hotel okay?
You’re so mad that you don’t respond for a full minute and you’re so
benevolent that when you do respond you’re kind: I get it. I will water your plants
tonight. Is the code the same?
I prefer keys to codes and you’re antsy. You don’t really care about her plants
but you want to hide out in her condo and think about me and pretend that
you’re single and Melanda grins. “Even for her, this is a lot of texting.” She sits up
on the futon. “What’s your plan, Joe?”
I DON’T FUCKING KNOW and you text her again—Let me know if the code
changed, love you—and I love you so I nip this in the fucking bud: Lol same code
but no need to worry about the plants. I tossed them a couple days ago. Would LOVE if
you could scoop up mail next week tho xoxo.
You give Melanda a thumbs-up but I know you, Mary Kay. You won’t wait a
week and what the fuck am I gonna do about her?
“It’s not as easy as you thought, is it, sweetie?”
“Do you cry when Hillary Whitney dies in Beaches?”
“You didn’t realize that real best friends talk every day. And I do not mean
text. I mean talk. As in out loud.”
“You’re happy for C. C. Bloom when she gets custody of that little girl, aren’t
you? You always wanted something like that to happen to you, so that you could
have Nomi all to yourself.”
“Honey, enough about the movies. You’re in trouble. MK will go to the police
if I don’t call her back. I mean yes, your little Minnesota story is cute, absolutely,
but if I did fly to Minneapolis, I’d call her from the airport to bitch about a loud
‘businessman’ and I’d call her from the hotel to bitch about the sheets. You don’t
know how it is with sisters.”
“You’re not her sister.”
She huffs. “Fine. You won’t be the first overzealous man to dig his own
grave.”
You see the best in people—always a dangerous approach to life—and this
why we’re a good team, Mary Kay. I see the worst. I tell Melanda that I don’t
care if I go to prison. I tell her that she’s the one behind bars, that her whole life
is a loveless fucking lie. She rolls over—I’m getting to her—and I tell her that I
am here to protect you from her and that no matter what happens, I have all the
evidence. I know that she resents you and I tell her that she’s neither a feminist
nor a sister and that you’re not gonna be her prisoner anymore.
And now she sits up and looks at me. “So Phil and I went out in high school.”
It’s so sad, how puffed up she gets by mentioning ancient high school history.
“Ah,” I say. “So Mary Kay stole your boyfriend. No wonder it’s so toxic between
you two.”
“Hardly,” she says. “I only tell you because obviously, I never moved on. Phil
is… well, he’s a rock star…” Mick Jagger is a rock star. Phil DiMarco is a rocker.
“And honey…” She puts her hand on her chest. “It’s sad that you think that she’d
ever leave him for you.”
“Tell me the code to your condo.”
She grins. “Ah,” she says. “I got to you, didn’t I?”
“I’ll get in there one way or another, Melanda.”
“I know,” she says. “You’ll get into my condo. But you’ll never get between
MK and Phil…” She smirks again. Vicious as an eighth-grade queen bee. “It’s so
cute. You swagger in here because she finally told you about Phil. You break
into my phone… you think you know us… I don’t know your deal, but you’ve
obviously seen Beaches and Romy and Michele. You know that best friends talk
about everything.
“Give me the fucking code.”
“But you don’t have transcripts of our wine nights… our phone calls…”
I hate my skin for turning red. “Just tell me the code.”
“Pound 342,” she says. 342 as in You love me. Ugh. “You can write it down.”
I should just fucking kill her, Mary Kay. “Thank you.”
I turn to go and she baits me. “I wish you were there the night she told me
about you.”
I say nothing.
“How you didn’t go to college… how you don’t have any friends… and I
definitely wish you had been there the night she told me about what a bad kisser
you are. Too much tongue.”
I won’t let her see my face. I know better, Mary Kay. She’s lying. She has to be
lying.
“It’s so sad that you actually think you’re in competition with Phil…” My
teeth are chattering. “And she’s right, Joe. You read too much.” No such thing.
“You overdose on beef and broccoli…” You would never say that about me. “That’s
the only possible explanation for why you could believe that she’d ever leave
someone like him for someone like you. She’s too kind for her own good.
Obviously she said something that put a pep in your step today but my God,
honey, get a clue. MK is nice to everyone. She’s a librarian, a public servant. A
people pleaser. It’s just a shame when guys like you take kindness so personally.”
She yawns like my mother and she reminds me of my mother, who would
turn up the volume on Jerry Springer when I got home from school, when I
wanted to tell her about my day. When I was dead to her because I was happy.
That’s what’s happening right now, Mary Kay. You put a “pep in my step”—you
told me I exist—and your friend wants me to stumble. She’s not smart like you
and me—she can’t be happy for other people, not really—and she won’t ever
learn her lesson and fuck it. Do I do it right now? Do I kill your best friend?
“Sweetie,” she says. “Could you move the TV in here? I have sensitive retinas
and the glare from the window really is killing me. I’d also love a steak. I am
simply dying for some real red meat, you know?
I want to, I do. But no. I don’t have a plan and I’m not going down over
Melanda.
I slam the door and on the way upstairs, my tongue pulsates in my mouth.
Fuck you, Melanda. My tongue is just fine.
Isn’t it?
15
I did not give her my fucking TV and I am not going to get her a steak. Bad dogs
don’t get treats. Everyone knows that. And that’s what she is, Mary Kay: a bad
dog. Territorial and violent. She attacked me and I brought her home. I fed her.
I tried to train her and she turned around and assaulted me again.
I definitely wish you had been there the night she told me about what a bad kisser
you are. Too much tongue.
Now I’m pacing in my backyard (watching my estranged son run around on
Instagram to remind myself of how fucking good I am. He’s toddling. He’s cute.
I made that). I trip on an exposed root in the natural landscape and I hate
Bainbridge Island because there is such a thing as TOO FUCKING QUIET.
We’re not in the desert and no one has to be on the factory line at 7:00 A.M. so
why is everyone but me asleep?
I wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. I’m a good goddamn guy but I’m a lonely guy,
bullied and used. She attacked me! It’s her fault that she’s in that basement, that
I’m in this mess, and did you really make fun of my kissing? Did you mean it
when you said you never thought you’d meet someone like me? Or is Melanda
right? Was that your kind way of telling me I’m not good enough?
I can’t be here. And no I don’t want to get on the ferry and ride to Seattle
and stuff my face with salmon ampersand quinoa and visit a bookstore
underneath a market—we get it, Seattle, you have history—only to be hungry an
hour later and hunt down some restaurant with a twee pink door. All of that is
really only fun if you’re doing it with someone you love and I love you but you’re
like the rest of the islanders right now.
You’re in bed.
I put on my gloves—no fucking prints, no DNA—and I unlock the door to
Melanda’s condo and set the stage for her departure in case you do pop by. I go
in the bathroom—the door is propped open by a copy of The Thorn Birds that
she cut in half—and it’s a foul mess of O.B. tampons and Fitness magazines and
monogrammed towels: MRS. Wow. Melanda Ruby Schmid really is a very bad
dog. Her parents knew it, burying the ruby because they knew she wasn’t a gem,
saddling her with initials she could never live up to. I pick up a framed photo of
you and your best friend and even when she’s happy, she’s miserable. Hiding
behind sunglasses while you squint in the sun.
I check my phone. Melanda is tearing the sheets off the bed and she isn’t
capable of appreciating a surprise movie-binge staycation because she isn’t
capable of love. She only sleeps in one half of her bed at home—the other half is
littered with mini Dove wrappers and oh for fuck’s sake, Melanda, you’re not a
supermodel. Buy a candy bar.
She’s reading Sarah Jio’s Violets of March and no, Melanda, that book isn’t
about you. It’s about a nice woman, a divorcée who got married because she
believed in love, unlike some people.
Was she right, Mary Kay? Are you never gonna leave him?
I open the junk drawer in her kitchen and she has dozens of Women’s Fitness
exercise calendars and they’re glued together by time and self-loathing. I look in
her mirror—it rests on the other half of The Thorn Birds—and it lies to me and
makes me taller and thinner than I am. I look above her mirror where there’s
another big fat lie in the form of a cheery sign: YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. I pick up her
computer and the last thing she googled was young Carly Simon and no,
Melanda. You don’t look like Carly Simon because Carly Simon has a soul. I
turn on her TV where it’s nothing but Real Housewives. She didn’t watch the
documentaries made by women for women that she praises on Twitter and she
listens to “Coming Around Again” so much because if no one ever stays—and
who could stay—then no one ever leaves and thus no one can ever return to play
the game again with her.
But this is the burden of being a good guy. I would never say any of that to
her.
The person I need right now is you. And it’s late but it’s not that late.
I pick up Melanda’s phone.
Melanda: You there?
You: Yep. Can’t sleep. How’s the trip? Did you get in safe?
Oh, Mary Kay. You could sleep if you were with me and so could I.
Melanda: Yes and sooooo… okay so I met someone lol
You: Already? You just landed, no?
Melanda: Well… we actually started talking a couple months ago but long distance I
mean I didn’t say anything because who knows but now I’m here and well… NOW I
KNOW lol
You: Wow. Well that’s… great?
Oh, Mary Kay, you are greener by the bubble.
Melanda: lol yes with him right now so gotta scram but yay for meeee!
You: Wow! Details? Tell me he’s not married.
Jesus, you are jealous and as well you should be. You see now that Melanda
took a leap of faith so she gets to be happy and this is how I make you see the
light.
Melanda: Nope! Divorced. Totally free… no offense lol
You: Ha.
I grin. It is a little fun to get under your skin.
Melanda: wow INDEED and he can KISS lol speaking of which… how’s your little
friend?
You: That’s so great M!
You didn’t bite the bait but on a good note, I hear the pain in your voice.
Melanda: I forgot about just kissing someone who like really really really knows
how to kiss lol am sorry I am in seventh grade right now woo hooo lololol
You: Yeah. Nothing like a kiss.
I miss your yeah and do you mean our kiss?
Melanda: You ok with stuff?
You: Yeah. Just trying to get Nomi to do her college essay. Maybe I’ll go back to
college too! When do you find out about the job?
Jesus, Mary Kay. Life moves forward. You went to college. You married Phil.
Get with the program and move on. Don’t pine for the past and don’t make it
all about the future. Be here now and give me your Lemonhead.
Melanda: Haha you could not pay me to go back to school I am so happy right now.
I mean Carl… my interview is tomorrow but I feel really good about it you know?
You: So happy for you M. Seriously.
Seriously. Take it in, Mary Kay. I know that divorce used to seem like a bad
idea, like you’d be at wine bars eight nights a week with Melanda. Squabbling
over horny Shortus types, men you don’t even like, regretting every decision
that led to that barstool. But you met me. It’s time to leave that fucker and be
with me. Carl did it. He left his wife and you can too.
Melanda: Ok seriously back at you ARE YOU OK you can talk about joe. I won’t
yell at you and make fun of his sweater lol I promise
I wait. I watch the screen. Nothing. Nothing at all. And then a minute later:
You: Melanda you don’t have to make a dig at him every time I mention him. I
know you don’t like him. Message received.
Melanda: I’m sorry I’m just like CARL CARL CARL ONLY GOOD MAN ON
EARTH
You: Well that’s great. Can’t wait to meet him if things work out.
If. Ouch! Is that the issue? You want the sure thing over the risk?
Melanda: Oh it’s more like whatever happens, being with him is a game changer you
know? He went through the fire and he left his wife and even if it doesn’t work out I am
just so happy we met you know? That said ok yes we are totally getting married lolol
You: Ha.
You never do the isolated ha and Melanda’s really getting to you. Good.
Melanda: r u mad at me?
You: No. Just feel like shit tonight. And I know. I’m married. I made this mess and I
have a husband but I don’t need a lecture right now so please spare me.
Melanda: Only love you sweetie. And on that note… I know I was hard on Joe.
Mary Kay: Eh. I should probably just forget it. It was just a kiss. A good one. I was
living in a fantasy. Cliché but true, ya know?
I have my answer. You do like the way I kiss and Melanda was right about
one thing. I’m nothing like Phil. I’m better than Phil. And Melanda may not have
come around and seen the light just yet, but I’m in control now and it’s time for
her to be a real friend.
Melanda: No MK. Look pre-Carl I was in man-bashing mode. I can admit that. I
mean you know that…
Mary Kay: I know he wasn’t your favorite…
Melanda: Do me a favor. Give it a chance. I’m not saying to leave Phil and I’m not
saying Joe is anywhere near the man that Carl is… lol gush gush gush… but I just… I
want you to be happy. There’s no law that says you can’t just get to know him I mean
you told him about Phil. Don’t push him away.
Mary Kay: Um who is this and can you send my friend Melanda back
A chill runs through my body. I stare at the phone and fuck you, Steve Jobs
and Mother Nature, because this is the flaw of all communication. Why can’t we
take things back? The pressure is increasing every second and I have to say
something but did I go too far?
Melanda: Oh believe me I’m grossed out too and fully aware that in seven days I
will probably hate Carl and Minnesota lolol
You are typing. Slowly. The dots appear and the dots go away and people
who go to bed early wake up early and I need to finish packing up for Melanda’s
imaginary trip and I need to get the fuck out of here before the joggers awake
and boom.
Mary Kay: I was just kidding. Very happy you’re happy. And yeah… about Joe, we’ll
see.
Oh yes we fucking will, Mary Kay.
16
It’s Christmas Eve and all day long, I live like a Mothball. I don’t make eye
contact with you unless you address me, which you do twice, both times for
professional reasons. At noon, I go out to the love seat, because I always go out to
the love seat. I know how to take a hint, Mary Kay. “Melanda” told you to give
me a chance, but the last time we spoke, you told me to back off.
The door opens at 12:13 and you’re wearing your coat—you mean to stay—
and you make a sad face at my lunch. “Well, that’s not beef and broccoli.”
“No,” I say. “This is what we call a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
You sit on the love seat. Not close as in Closer. But you’re not shoved against
the armrest. You smile at me. Playful. “Is it okay if I tell you that Nomi likes the
Bukowski you suggested?”
“I think that’s okay. Is it okay if I tell you that I’m really happy you came out
here?”
“Well, I think that’s okay. But I should ask you if it’s okay for me to say that I
was up all night because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“I think it’s okay for you to say that… as long as it’s okay for me to say that I
was up all night thinking about you too.”
We are on fire and you scratch your messy bun. Red. Gold. You. “Is it okay
for me to say that I thought about you in the shower?”
“Only if it’s okay for me to say that I always think about you in the shower.”
You turn red. “Is it okay for me to say that I’ve been hoping that you do?”
“Only if it’s okay for me to say that I fucked you in my head in every square
foot of this library.”
You glance at me. Did I go too far? You smile. “Is it okay for me to be a little
insulted that you haven’t imagined what we could do right here?”
“I said every square foot of the library, Mary Kay.”
“Yes, but in my head, we’ve been on every square foot of the property.
Now you went too far and you turn red and I want to hug you but there are
Mothballs inside and there’s an invisible ring on your finger. “See,” you say.
“This is the catch-22. We both know that a lot of this is about the boundary. I
mean who’s to say that all the tension between us isn’t about the boundary? I’m
thinking of both of us here, Joe. Because look at us. Yesterday I was a nervous
wreck about telling you and it turns out you already know… joke’s on me… and
today, ten seconds into it and it’s… Well, my God, our IQs are dropping a
million points a second.”
You’re the one who’s married and I’m the one who’s not and I wouldn’t
respect you, let alone love you, if you weren’t so torn up right now, but it’s time
for me to show off for you the way you showed off for me. “You’re right,” I say.
“And we should probably go back inside.”
You look at me like you were hoping I would kiss you. As if I can fucking do
that. “Is it okay if I say I’m sorry for imploding?”
I stand up. You’re still sitting. At this height, you could unzip me and put me
in your mouth and that’s what you want but you’ve convinced yourself that it’s
all you want when it comes to me. I leave you on the love seat and go back into
the stacks and wait three minutes and text you from Melanda’s phone.
So?
So what?
So did you see Joe yet? Sorry lol I’m in love mode!
You’re spending the rest of your lunch break hiding from me in your office
and you sigh.
Well I just offered to sleep with him in the parking lot. He probably thinks I’m
insane. THIS is insane.
You’re talking yourself out of it and I’m sick of the way you women call out
everything natural and reasonable as insane. But I’m not me. I’m Melanda.
Well maybe you should lol kiddiiiiiiing
You pick up a candy cane on your desk and bite into it. Crunch. Like the rock
hitting Melanda’s head in the woods. And maybe there is a little holiday fucking
magic just for us. Maybe something good will come out of this mess after all.
What if I’m just really horny or what if HE’S just really horny? What if I’m just
building him up in my head. I mean look at Seamus. Nice pig, but a pig. We know men.
Joe is probably too good to be true. You’re the one who said it. No friends. No ties. He
spent Thanksgiving alone and you know what they say. People show you who they are.
I want to storm into your office and dive into your Murakami because sexual
frustration is poisonous.
Sweetie Carl’s here so I have to go but honestly… I was moody that day at the diner.
You like him. He likes you. Deal with it. xoxo love youuuuu
Melanda’s right, Mary Kay. You like me. You do need to fucking deal with it
and I know how to force you to deal with it. There’s a seminar in one of the
glass-walled conference rooms. It’s a setup for disaster—Mothballs teaching
Mothballs how to operate their iPhones—and you forced Nomi to help out but
she’s the only one in there under sixty. She’s not even doing her fucking job,
Mary Kay. She’s holding her phone, forcing one of our patrons to look at her
pictures. “See,” Nomi says. “This is the shed at Fort Ward. The moss on the roof
is like the floor of a forest for Barbies. When I was little I wanted my dad to
steal it.”
I know Phil’s her dad but ugh and the Mothball glares at me and Nomi clocks
me and grunts. “So my mom roped you into this too? Nice. Real nice.”
“Not at all,” I say, rolling up my sleeves and wiping belVita fiber cookie
crumbs into a napkin. “I’m here because I want to be here.”
Nomi makes room for me at the table and Mrs. Elwell remarks on your
Meerkat’s demeanor and I am a pro, defending your daughter without excusing
her behavior—I love to play both sides!—and before you know it, we’re in a
groove. We help Mrs. Elwell “connect” with her family on Facebook—remember
when slide shows were universally acknowledged to be torture?—and Nomi is
softening her approach, learning to be more patient, more like me. She’s not the
fastest learner and she snorts when a Mothball in a sweater set can’t access her
Budussy books. But I catch her eye—Be nice, Nomi—and what can I say, Mary
Kay?
I’m good with kids. I’m selfless. I know my way around a cell phone and I’m
paternal but not patriarchal and you have a front-row seat. You see me and I see
the wheels turning in your head as you remember that I’m not just a good kisser.
I’m a good person. And I don’t rest on my laurels because I had one hit song
twenty years ago—get over yourself, Phil—and when it’s over your Meerkat sighs.
“Well,” she says. “We survived.”
“Oh come on,” I say. “You had some fun. I know I did.”
Nomi won’t admit it—that’s kids—but when I’m packing up to go home, she
cracks a Budussy joke. You see that we bonded—another score!—and I wave.
Friendly Joe! Well-adjusted Joe! “You guys have a great holiday! Gotta go meet
some friends in the city!”
Sure enough, you send a text to Melanda while I’m walking home.
Okay he’s good. It’s like I almost forgot how smart he is because it was so surreal to
be so open with him about the other side of things and… okay. Okay wow. Aahahhahah.
Melanda’s busy with Carl, and she is jealous at heart, so she just likes your
text. And you don’t text again and that’s just as well because I may not have
friends and I may not be unhealthily attached to my family that I secretly hate—
I’m talking to you, my fecal-eyed neighbors—but I do have Melanda in my
basement—and you know what, Mary Kay? I’m actually happy she’s there.
This has never been a good night for me. When I was a kid, I wrote letters to
Santa telling him I’d be a good boy and wait for next Christmas, when things
would be better—ha!—but now the lie of my childhood is true. I have a future
with you and this really is the last shitty Christmas of my life, the darkest hour
before our permanent dawn. I won’t make it worse by giving myself a body to
deal with when everyone else on this rock is opening their fucking presents so I
warm up some fried chicken I had in the freezer and I grab a gallon of ice cream
and head downstairs. She sees me. She smells the chicken. And before I even
ask, she handcuffs herself to the bed and tosses the key at the door. Such a good
dog suddenly, and I enter the Whisper Room and she does a little upper body
ladies’ night kind of dance on her futon.
“Oh honey, I love fried chicken!”
I hand her the tray and she tears skin off the chicken and pops it into her
mouth. “Scrumptious,” she coos, as she licks her fucking fingers. I know what
she’s doing, Mary Kay. She’s playing me. As if she thinks this is the first time I’ve
been cornered into quarantining a dangerous, unstable person in my fucking
personal space. I play right back. “Well, you seem happy.”
“You know what? I actually am happy. And omigod, I really did forget how
much I loooove The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.
“Oh yeah?”
She eats more skin. She licks her fingers. “It does make me kind of sad
though…”
“Oh yeah?”
She tears the lid off the ice cream and digs her fork into the gallon. This is
part of her game. “Yeah,” she says. “I feel like you think Mary Kay is the Bridget
Fonda, the Annabella Sciorra. You buy her barn jacket demeanor and the whole
holier-than-thou good woman thing…” You are a good woman and Melanda
smacks her gums. “Sweetie, you should know that Mary Kay is just… Well, she’s
not what you think.”
Poor Melanda. If only she knew that you and I had a banner day. I tell her to
hold that thought and I go upstairs and make us two mugs of hot cocoa and by
this time next year, I’ll be doing the same thing, making cocoa for you.
Melanda claps when I return to the Whisper Room. “Ooh, yes. I miss carbs so
much.”
You’re allowed to have this one last nuclear holiday with your unchosen
family, same way Melanda is allowed to have a sugar high. The steam turns her
skin red and she purrs like one of my cats. “Mmmm,” she says. “Yummy.”
“So you were saying…”
She puts her mug on the end table and she picks up the remote and pauses
Anything Else and it’s just me, Melanda, and Jason Fucking Biggs. She picks at
the GUN on her shirt. “So I got pregnant in high school.”
I remain calm. I am the fucking key master. “Is this another lie? Because I
know that Mary Kay never said I’m a bad kisser.”
She bats her eyelashes, what’s left of them. “I know,” she says. “I said some
really icky things when I was detoxing…” Always with an excuse. “But you were
right…” Stop trying to mind-fuck me, Melanda. I’m too happy to be stupid.
“And you should know why I was really in the woods the other night.”
I sit in the chair and sip my cocoa. “Well, go ahead.”
“So I was fifteen and I barely knew the guy and I took care of it.”
“Okay.”
“And Mary Kay was amazing, totally there for me, real hard-core best friend
stuff.”
“Well, that’s no surprise.”
She dips a finger into the melted vanilla. “True,” she says. “And I was there a
few years later for her. When she got pregnant.”
“And…”
Melanda flaps her wings. “And she was older. It wasn’t dramatic…You’re not
a drama queen. A drama queen wouldn’t have been so responsive to all my good
doings in the library today. “And I go to the hospital the day she goes into labor.
I’m in the room with her holding her hand because Phil… well, I mean, he wasn’t
that kind of guy…” There’s one true thing. “So Nomi arrives and she’s beautiful.
Perfect. This feels like our baby, you know? And MK looks at me and goes,
‘Thank you, Melanda. If you hadn’t showed me how hard it was to give up a
pregnancy, I might not have my baby.’ ”
Very well played, because as a man, I can’t say anything. “That’s a lot to take
in.”
“So she put Nomi in my arms. I held that little girl and I was fine with my
decision. I have no regrets. I did the right thing at the right time…” I know the
feeling. “See, I was in the woods that night because Nomi is part mine. Mary Kay
knew what she was doing when she put Nomi in my arms, when she found a
flaw in every guy I ever even tried to date. Yes, I’ve had my moments. Maybe I’m
not the best friend at times…” Ha! “But Mary Kay uses me, Joe. I’ve been the one
looking out for Nomi. In The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Annabella Sciorra
practically lives in that barn jacket. Like Mary Kay in her tights. But that’s the
male director’s gaze for you. In reality, no woman wears that barn jacket every
day. You should know that you’ve put yourself in jeopardy for a woman who
only exists in your head.” She looks at the TV. And then she looks at me. “You
look like him, you know? Jason Biggs. A handsome version, obviously.
I don’t look like Jason Biggs and she licks her fingers and goes back to
watching her fucking movie and I do not wish her a Merry Christmas. She was
supposed to see what’s wrong with her but instead she’s trying to make me think
there’s something wrong with you.
I go upstairs and I am fuming, trapped, fucked. Ho Fucking Ho and everyone
on this rock is asleep except me and Melanda. I read my stupid horoscope on
one of her astrology apps—no, Joe, no—and I go to Love’s Instagram and watch
Forty open his fucking presents again—no, Joe, no—and I miss my son, my son I
never met and right now the bitch is right.
You really aren’t here with me. You only exist in my head.
But then my phone buzzes. It’s you: Merry Christmas Eve, Joe. Just thinking of
you.
I needed you and you knew it—our connection is like me, it exists—and I
settle into my sofa and my cats gather and romp. I spend the rest of the night
texting with you about Christmas stories and the Bukowski you bought for
Nomi and it’s calming and cozy—you send me a picture of your bare legs, your
fuzzy sock slippers—and our phones are magic. We are magic and we light up
the wee hours of the long, heavy night but eventually you do have to get some
sleep—big day today—and I wish you sweet dreams. I am content. Loved. It’s
almost like your friend Melanda ceases to exist, like Santa Claus finally did me
an overdue solid and schlepped into this house and dragged your friend out of
here, onto his fucking sleigh.
Almost.
17
It’s the day after Christmas and I’ve been living in a fantasy, texting with you
when you manage to squirrel away from your family. This power imbalance
wouldn’t work with anyone but you, Mary Kay, constantly empathetic—I hope
you don’t mind me only having a minute here and there—and though we don’t say it,
we both know that this is the last holiday we’ll spend apart.
My present to Melanda was giving her exactly what she wanted: no fucking
food. But it’s been almost two days and I don’t want her to starve to death—that
takes too long—so I’m on my way downstairs with a bowl of food—she really is
like my dog—and lucky for me, she’s asleep. No more film school today because
she’ll make up more stories to stay alive. And it’s not entirely her fault for
thinking she has a chance. Last night, I told you about how I gave the fecal-eyed
family a wreath and you said I’m too nice for my own damn good. And you’re
right, Mary Kay.
I am. But I’m also a fucking procrastinator. I know I have to kill Melanda.
But I just keep putting it off.
It’s not just me, Mary Kay. Most “normal” people in America are in the same
boat right now, torn between wanting to save the people they’re stuck with and
wanting to fucking kill them. I don’t know if her story about you is true, but I
know that I don’t care. So what if you had a callous moment in the delivery
room? You had just created a child with Phil. We’re animals. Animals eat other
animals alive. That’s the way the system is designed. And so what if you
manipulated Melanda into being your unofficial co-parent? You were stuck
with Phil and mothers do crazy shit. Love lets my son chew on Christmas lights
—I don’t even let my cats do that—and the fact is, motherhood is the hardest
job in the world. I love the person you are now, Mary Kay—you wished me a
Merry Christmas, you wished me a Merry Christmas—and if someone from my past
attacked you, well, you might hear things about me that would put you off.
I’m a lot of things, Mary Kay, but I’m not a hypocrite.
I’m on my way to the library when Melanda’s phone pings in my pocket.
Christmas wasn’t the same without you. Hope you had fun with Carl! Would love to
see pics!
LOL no pics cuz his kids were with his wife and we were pretty much naked the
whole time bwaahahahahha
Well that’s great. I can’t stop thinking about Joe… We’re talking nonstop like
teenagers.
I pump my fist. Well, not really, but I want to.
Sweetie don’t think. Just do! Lol love you! Hope you guys had a fun holiday too!
There’s a big difference between telling someone that you hope they had fun
and asking if they had a good time. You know it too, and you don’t write back
to Melanda. Good. You’re right. We have been texting like teenagers and we’re not
in high school and it’s time for you to step up and make room for me. I get to
the library before you and I am shelving Richard Scarrys by the Red Bed when I
hear your voice.
“Hey,” you say, and what a rush, to finally hear your voice out loud in person,
to see your face. You murmur now, as if things changed for us over the past few
days, because they did change. “I am… I have a little something for you.”
You’re holding a white box and there is a red ribbon wrapped around the
white box and you motion toward the door and I follow you outside, where it is
gray. Drab. As if January can’t fucking wait to get here. We didn’t go more than
two hours and twelve minutes without talking over the last five days but now
we sit on our love seat like strangers on a bus.
You hold your box. “Is this weird?”
“Only if there’s a bomb inside.”
You laugh. I always make you laugh. “Yeah… I got you a little something…”
Because we bonded over Christmas. “You were so great with Nomi the other day
and that meant a lot to me.”
“Well, that was nice of you.”
You nod. You’re still married and you feel guilty, which is why you can’t
speak the truth and I get it. We’re at work. We have to pretend the last few days
never happened, not because someone might be eavesdropping—we’re alone out
here—but because you too are procrastinating. You look down at the box that
sits on your lap. A corduroy skirt today. Black tights.
“So how was it? How was Christmas with the family?”
You look at me—you can’t fucking believe how good I am—and you crack a
smile. “Well, it was our first Christmas without Melanda. So we didn’t have a
buffer.”
You really do believe it’s her texting you and I smile. “And how was that?”
You rub the ribbon on my box, my box that is your box. “I don’t know why
I’m telling you this. It doesn’t feel fair.”
“We’re just talking. And I do care about you. You know that.”
“Yeah,” you say. “I guess it’s that thing where even when someone is like
family, which Melanda really is, well it’s still company. So you dress up a little,
you know? You have a guest. And it was different without her. There was this
moment, after we ate. Phil…” You gulp. “My husband’s playing his guitar,
blasting his music, and Nomi’s wearing her headphones and reading her
Columbine and I almost…” Got in the car to come see me. “Well, open your
present already.”
You hand me the box and a car passes by and the windows are down and
Sam Cooke serenades us—Darling you send me, honest you do—and Love sent me
away but you send me and I send you. You nudge me. “Well come on. Open it.”
I pull the ribbon and I open your box—if only—and I count six red
strawberries, all of them doused in chocolate and I bet Phil didn’t get any
fucking strawberries. I look at you. “I wish I had something for you.”
Your cheeks are flushed and your eyes are glued to me and you missed me.
“Yeah,” you say. “I wish a lot of things lately…
I want your Murakami and I want your Lemonhead and we both stare at our
tree. “I don’t want to be selfish, Joe.”
“You’re not being selfish.”
“Well, that’s not what Phil says…”
I can’t be the one you talk to about the rat and you’re the one who made the
rules. I nod.
“See, Joe, I think Melanda’s mad at me. I think that’s why she blew me off at
Christmas.”
I can’t talk about this either and my heart is pounding. Melanda. “Why do you
say that?”
“It’s ancient history, but in high school… God, I’m too old to start stories
with that sentence… Anyway, when we became friends, she told me that all
these people like your neighbor Nancy… Well, she told me they hated me. And
then one day I go into the bathroom, and I overhear her telling Nancy that I
hate Nancy.”
So that’s why you stole her rat and that’s why you weren’t exactly sensitive
about her pregnancy when you got pregnant. And you don’t know she’s in my
basement. You really don’t. Do you? “You never told her you overheard her?”
You shake your head. “It’s weird to miss her and yet not miss her, you know?
She might not even come back for a few months…” I know. “Melanda” texted
you that. “She’s gonna start this new job. She met this new guy… I’m not so good
with change. And it’s strange to feel almost jilted, as if I was being ‘possessive’ or
something when I know I should just be happy for her and I know we were both
dragging each other down. But it stings in some weird way, to feel… left.”
RIP Beck… RIP Candace… Love. I nod. “It is,” I say. “But ultimately, the
distance gets you to a more honest place, you know?
You’re contemplative. You need me because I’m the first person in your life
that really fucking listens. I give you the silence you’ve been craving and you
want me so much that you’re shaking. “Come on,” you say. “It’s getting cold.”
You open the door—you’re not cold, you’re hot, hot for me—and you look at
the Red Bed and I look at the Red Bed and you blush. “Have a good rest of the
day!”
I have a great rest of the day because of you. You love me and I oughta buy
Melanda some chocolate-covered strawberries—ha!—because look what she did
for you, for me, for us—and I carry your box under the crook of my arm and
Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” is on repeat in my head and the world would be a
happier place if more people would lift their souls with music instead of ugh-
inducing podcasts. I make it into town and I take off my headphones and there
is music in the café today—Bob Dylan in Pegasus—and there really is revolution
in the air, strawberries in my hands. I get the chills.
We were tangled up in Phil’s blues and you were married when we met but
you gave me a gift and you are soon to be divorced and I’m helping you out of the
jam that is your bad, blue life. I’m saving you! It’s almost like you knew about my
situation with Melanda, and now I don’t have to feel bad about it because you
don’t want things to go back to normal.
Why would you? You have me.
I open my box and look down on my six, Red Bed red strawberries,
Murakamis cloaked in chocolate. I reach my hand into your box that is my box
but some asshole body slams me. The box goes flying and the Adidas–sneakered
ass who did this mad-dogs me like I did something wrong.
“Dude,” I say. I am so mad I’m saying dude. “What the fuck?”
He doesn’t speak or move and I don’t like this, Mary Kay. I don’t like him.
“Sorry,” he says. “Small sidewalk… small world, too, my friend.”
I am not his friend and he’s not one of us. He doesn’t live here. I can just tell. I
step toward him—this is my town—and he shakes his head slowly, like a B
movie gangster, as if someone wearing Adidas sneakers and a battered old long-
sleeve T-shirt—SOMETHING BOATHOUSE—could ever be remotely intimidating.
A kid on a skateboard runs over one of my strawberries and the man who
knocked the strawberries onto the sidewalk steps forward. “Nice gift,” he says.
“Nothing says forever like a fruit box. You really know how to pick ’em,
Goldberg.”
The sky falls down. He said my name.
Is he a cop? Is this about my dog back home?
I give nothing. I say nothing. I know nothing and he laughs. “Calm down,” he
says. “They never taste as good as they look, do they, Goldberg?” I could punch
his lights out right now. I make a fist. “All right,” he says. “I know you have a
temper…” No I fucking don’t, not anymore. “So I’ll cut to the chase. I’m just here
with a message from our friends the Quinns.
The Quinns? Love’s family? No. It’s a new year. A new life. “Who are you?”
“It’s pretty simple, Goldberg. Stay away from Love. Stay away from Forty.”
“I don’t know who you are, but obviously you’re ill-informed because I have
stayed away.”
“Oh, Goldberg,” he says. “Mind your Instagram activities or you’re gonna
wind up like your little strawberries. Capiche?”
I looked at Love’s stories because IT WAS FUCKING CHRISTMAS AND
SHE STOLE MY SON AND YOU TELL ME HOW TO NOT LOOK AT
YOUR OWN FUCKING SON and I ask him who sent him and he chuckles.
I pick up my empty box. “Well, you stay the fuck away from me. And my
family.”
He steps in front of me. “I wouldn’t talk that way to me if I were you, Joe.”
“You walk up here. You start shit with me and I don’t know who the hell you
are and you talk about my family.
The motherfucker snorts. “ ‘Family,’ ” he says. “Well, that’s one word for it, my
friend.”
“Who are you?”
“Look, you’re not a member of the Quinn family, Goldberg. See, I work for
the Quinn family. I’m here on behalf of the Quinn family. Think of me as your
co-worker.”
“But I don’t work for the Quinns.”
“Huh,” he says. “How’d ya pay for your house?”
I don’t answer the question because he knows the goddamn answer and he
laughs. Pig. Snob. “See,” he says. “The difference between you and me is that the
family is on my side, not yours. Understood? So, stop stalking your ex, my
friend, and stay offline. Because if you don’t stop…”
He smashes a strawberry with his shoe and looks at me. “Got it?”
He flips his hat around and walks away and I let him. I have no fucking
choice.
18
I can’t get those mutilated, bleeding strawberries out of my mind—What else
does the Strawberry Killer know?—and Melanda is doing jumping jacks and
what the fuck happened? I was with you and you were with me and now your
strawberries are gone—I didn’t get to eat one—and Melanda never ate the food I
brought her. She claims she’s still fasting her body and her soul and that’s a lie.
There’s nothing spiritual about her fucking hunger strike—she just wants to be
thinner than you—and I don’t want her to be here.
But she is.
And she’s different, Mary Kay. She just finished The Anjelica Huston Story
(a.k.a. Crimes and Misdemeanors), and she’s high on endorphins, sounding off on
Rebecca De Mornay in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle—Who wouldn’t go nuts
working for a barn jacket mommy who gets to be married to the nicest man on the
planet?—and she takes a punch at Single White FemaleWho wouldn’t go crazy
shacking up with Bridget Fonda and her stupid swan neck?
She won’t stop talking and I can’t stop thinking about the Strawberry Killer
and why is every fucking person lining up to get in our way? Finally, she stops
jumping and sighs. “You were so right about Beaches, Joe.”
“I’m gonna go back upstairs. You seem okay for now.”
“Wait,” she says. “I mean it. You were right, Joe. You were right about a lot.”
Sorry, Melanda, I’m not some dumb asshole who gets off on a woman telling
him he’s right. “See,” she says. “I don’t cry when Barbara Hershey dies. You want
to know why?”
I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. “Why?”
“Because she deserved to die, Joe. She stole her roommate’s boyfriend.” She
touches her toes and rises, Jane Fucking Fonda, and now she’s jumping again.
Clap. Swish. Clap. “I want to go to Minnesota, Joe. I’m ready.” This should be
good news. She wants out and I want her out—LIFE IS SUPPOSED TO BE
EASY WHEN PEOPLE WANT THE SAME FUCKING THING—but she’s
here. She knows things. She jumps and she jacks and she pushes. “I’m tired of this
island, where women are expected to go around forgiving the women who shit
all over them. Right now, I just want to forgive you, Joe.” She stops jumping and
takes her pulse and her poor parents, no wonder they died early. “And I promise
you, Joe, I will never breathe a word of any of this to anyone…” She’s saying my
name way too much. “You helped me. And I’m ready to move on.” She flops
onto the futon with a “Woof, I’m dizzy” and she picks up the gallon of water and
drinks directly from it even though there’s a plastic cup on the nightstand. She’s
relaxed and I’m tense, riddled with Silverstein’s Whatifs—What if someone saw
me with the Strawberry Killer? What if you see your strawberries mashed on the
pavement?—and why didn’t I scrape up that mess and what am I gonna do
about this mess?
“I fucked him,” she says. “I fucked Phil.”
“In high school. I know.”
“No, Joe. I’m talking about a few weeks ago, when MK was outta town. Go
back to my condo. I dare you. I am so behind on laundry so you can take my
panties to a lab. They’ll find Phil’s DNA, I promise you.”
Another story, no doubt. I want your panties not her panties and I take her
phone out of my pocket and she laughs. “Oh come on,” she says. “I’m a teacher. I
don’t sext with him. It’s an affair. You just have to trust me…” She rubs her calf,
as if she’s pretending her hand belongs to a man, to your fucking rat.
“Remember when Jennifer Jason Leigh mounted Bridget Fonda’s boyfriend in
Single White Female? It’s kinda like that. We are talking a ton of blow jobs.”
She drinks directly from her jug.
“Melanda, this doesn’t matter.”
“Wrong,” she says. “This changes everything. Now you know my dirty secret.
You can let me go because I don’t want Mary Kay to find out about me and Phil.
And you don’t want her to find out about you and me.”
I don’t want there to be a me and Melanda—why can’t your friends be normal?
—and she crosses her legs. “You don’t believe me.
“I didn’t say that.”
“So, it started after my thirtieth birthday, not the best time in my life, as you
might imagine… MK wanted to throw me a surprise party, but you know how it
is…” What the hell would I know about surprise parties and would you
recognize your strawberries if you saw them on the sidewalk? “I told her no, but
she insisted. So I got all dressed up, figured we’d be at the pub, maybe
somewhere in Lynwood…” Oh, Melanda, learn how to tell a story and oh, Mary
Kay, I am sorry about your fruit. “But then MK picks me up. She drives us to her
house…
Is she making this up as she goes along? “Can you just get to the point?”
She twirls her hair. “Go on my Facebook. Look at the pictures. It wasn’t a
party for me, Joe. It was a fuck-you to me. All families. All kids and babies and
it’s not like I don’t like kids and babies, but come on. I’m thirty years old and I
don’t even have a boyfriend and Phil was supposed to bring this guy from his
band who seemed decent and he’s not there and I’m literally the only person at
my birthday party who doesn’t have a husband or a kid.”
I dig up the pictures on her fucking Facebook and I see you. I see all the
children, but like most pictures, these don’t tell the whole story. Melanda curls
up like a college kid in an emotional circle jerk. She says she got drunk and
passed out on your sofa before the party ended.
“I woke up… I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know what year it was. You
know that kind of drunk?” No. “That dirty thirty kind of drunk…” She’s Bridget
Jones now, she’s fucking British. “Anywho, Phil comes downstairs.” She gulps, in
a way that makes her story seem legitimate. “He whipped it out. I could have
told him to bugger off. But I was just so mad at MK. I wanted to suck his cock,
Joe…” Bridget didn’t talk like that. Too crass. “And I wanted to do that because
of what she did to me with that pretend party. So I did it.” She arches her back,
a mix of pride and shame and joy and you deserve better, Mary Kay. “And that’s
that. Our ten-year anniversary is coming up and I do not want to be here to
‘celebrate’ it. I also don’t want to be forced to come back here for some stupid
court hearing about all this… so this is where we are.”
“You expect me to believe that Mary Kay has no idea about you and Phil…”
“I’m a very good liar, Joe. You of all people should know that.”
I shove her phone in my pocket. “This has nothing to do with our situation.”
“Are you kidding? Don’t you get it? I want out. I hate the person I’ve become.
I hate that I slowly, unconsciously settled for this man just because he calls me
Ruby and I hate that I became someone who got off on pulling one over on my
best friend. I hate my condo. I hate my job. I hate my noisy fridge and I hate the
guilt and I hate that I’m actually happy I missed Christmas because it meant that
I didn’t have to sit in their house like some overgrown orphan and go home and
gorge on Hostess Cupcakes while I sit on my couch just hating myself. I swear to
you, you are in the clear because I want to be in the clear. I want out.”
I see your strawberries on the sidewalk. I see the rain washing them away.
“Okay,” she says. “You don’t believe me. You need details…” No, Mary Kay.
No. “So, a few years ago he got this day job… I mean the man does not belong at
a desk…” She says that like it’s a good thing. “I would sneak out of school at
lunch and park a block away and go into his office and… you know. He said he
couldn’t live without me and it’s terrible, but it was so exciting, sneaking
around, sucking him off, and going back to teach all the kids about Zora Neale
Hurston.” She’s waving her arms as if this weight has finally been lifted and it all
feels real but she might be faking it. She has been studying some of the world’s
most phenomenal actresses and you’re a fox. You would know if your best friend
and your husband were boning. Foxes see things. “I don’t know, Melanda…”
“Oh, come on,” she says. “Barn jacket Goody Two-shoes wives are always
blind. These past few days… Being away from my life… well now I get it. Phil’s
married to MK. You’re in love with MK. That’s the story of my life here. And
here’s the kicker…” The long dramatic pause and I am the Bonnie Hunt to her
Zellweger in Jerry Fucking Maguire. “You’re right, Joe. I’m not a woman
supporting women. I don’t want to leave. I have to leave.”
She takes a stage breath and I feel played. “Melanda, I think you need to eat
something.”
“You’re judging me. And you’re allowed. I was dumb like Anjelica Huston.
Who knows? Maybe I’m too romantic…” Oh, for fuck’s sake. “And yes, Joe, yes, I
have dreamed about Mary Kay catching a rare heart disease or a fast-moving
cancer but that was only because I wanted Phil to be free.” She rubs her eyes.
“And now I’m just… tired. Now I just want out.”
I picture her in Charlize Theron’s apartment in Young Adult, drunk and
alone, calling you up in the middle of the night and telling you what I did to her
as she underplays what she did to me and I knock on the glass and she sighs, ever
the condescending teacher and she says she hears me. “Look at it this way. If
there’s one thing you can be sure about, well, I know how to keep a secret. I
never gave Phil an ultimatum. I never threatened to tell MK. And I don’t want
to hurt her anymore. And this time around… this is a secret that I would hold
on to because I don’t want her to know. I’ve done enough damage to them.”
“You’re not the one who’s married, Melanda. He took advantage of you.
She looks me right in the eye. “No, Joe. I took advantage of them.
She kicks the wall with her bare foot and now she’s rubbing her foot and she
reminds me of my son, always banging himself on the head, his mother begging
her Instagram audience of cunts for advice. How do I get my little boy to stop
beating himself up? Do I put him in a helmet?
I tell her this is a very creative story and she accuses me of saying she’s not hot
enough for Phil because she doesn’t prance around in miniskirts like you and I tell
her she’s twisting my words and she tugs at the GUN on her T-shirt. “Did you
read that book The Beloveds?”
“The Maureen Lindley? No, I haven’t read it yet.”
Her face is the reason people like RIP Benji lie about reading books and her
eyes fill with judgment. Thick, ugly snobbery. “Well, it’s this theory. Some
people get to be loved and some people don’t.”
“That’s a crock of shit. You just said that Phil ‘loves’ you. So which is it?”
“You’re a kidnapper. I’m a husband fucker. Let’s agree that we’re not model
citizens. You want in, I want out.” She makes it all sound so simple, Mary Kay,
like a bizarro-world Pacific Northwest fairy tale where it’s happy endings all
around. But that’s what teachers do. They simplify things. She rubs her eyes.
“Well, if you won’t put me on a plane right now, can you please bring the TV in
here? I have such a migraine.”
I’m tired too, Mary Kay. And I can’t deal with her remains, not with the
fucking Strawberry Killer out there. I’m a nice guy, and she’s starting to cry, so I
bring the TV into her room. She rolls over and picks up the remote. “Thank
you,” she says. “And if it’s not too much… I’d love a nice big fast-breaking last
supper. Steak or salmon. Or even chicken.”
“It’s not your last supper, Melanda.”
She cues up the third and last Bridget Jones movie. “Can you just let me
watch in peace?”
I leave her to be loved vicariously through Bridget Fucking Jones and there
are moments when I want her to be happy. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she really
does want a fresh start. I imagine a world where you and I are living together.
Phil is gone, finding new women to suck on his Philstick and Melanda calls you
once a week from her new life in Minnesota. She never tells you about that
night in the woods and you never find out that she betrayed you. We take our
secrets to the grave and people do that. I want to do that because I want to be
the man who fixed your life. Not the man who killed your best friend.
But then I remember her Sorel boot in my ribs. I remember how the corners
of her Carly Simon mouth turned up as I left her just now. I can’t fucking trust
her, Mary Kay. I have to fact-check her soap opera saga so I throw a salmon on
the grill. I pop a steak in the oven—Nice Joe! Chef Joe!—and I play the Sacriphil
songs from the year Melanda turned thirty. It’s no use, Mary Kay. This is a
concept album about a day in the life of a ghost—oh, Phil, you should have quit
after your Shark—and I turn off the fucking “music” and text Phil from my
burner phone: Hey, you around?
A good five minutes later my man Phil responds: Hell yeah Joe!
I step on Riffic’s tail and he hisses and my veins shrink up on me. Phil called
me Joe. To him I’m Jay. Does he know? Am I fucked? Ten seconds later: I mean
Jay. Sorry man!
Fucking prick.
I write back: Question. Banging the girlfriend’s best friend. Am I going to hell for
that, or is that kinda shit good for the music?
Phil responds with an all caps warning—FOR YOUR EYES ONLY,
HAVEN’T LAID DOWN THIS TRACK YET—and a page of his notepad. The
title of the song is “A Diamond for You, A Ruby for Me” and I scan the lyrics
and he’s mining rubies at Fort Ward and Jesus, Mary Kay. It’s true. Her story
wasn’t “creative” and sometimes truth really is more repugnant and useful than
fiction.
I’m mad for you and I’m sad for you. Of all the places they could have gone,
Fort Fucking Ward. The salmon is sizzling and the fat in the meat is bubbling
and Melanda is right. She knows my secret and I know hers. Could I do it, Mary
Kay? Could I let your best friend go?
I never wanted to kill her—I don’t want to kill anyone—and okay. It’s insane
to imagine her walking up the stairs, going to an airport, and starting over. But
once upon a time, it was insane to imagine a woman like you walking into my
life and I want to do right by you.
I placate your lying, cheating rat with all the caps I can manage—YOU ARE
THE KING—and I put Sam Cooke on repeat to sanitize my eardrums.
And then my doorbell rings.
That’s not a thing my doorbell does and is it the Strawberry Killer? Is it Phil?
Did he somehow find out where I live? I don’t like the sound of my doorbell and
there it goes again and now there is knocking and what if the rat found out my
address and now it’s the doorbell and the fists pounding on the door and my
skin crawls.
I don’t look in the peephole and I don’t run. My hand sweats as I grip the
doorknob.
And there you are.
19
You are wet—it started raining—and feral—you barge into my house.
Your hair is dripping on your blouse and your blouse is soaked—I see the
outline of your bra—and you pace around in my living room—did I close the
door to the basement?—and you are quiet. Wordless and airtight, like my
Whisper Room, and do you know about Melanda? Do you know about Jay? I
never should have knocked out Melanda and brought her home. I should have
let her try and ruin my name—A Girl Is a Gun—because you would have come to
my defense. You would have told her she was wrong. But I let my fear get the
best of me and you drop onto my red sofa and you look at me like I’m a cheater.
You point at my big red chair. “Sit,” you say, as if I’m a dog. “Sit.”
You don’t speak to me. You pull your shirt over your head and it feels like
the first time I ever jerked off—Blanche DuBois, I love you forever—and it
reminds me of the first real-life woman I saw naked—my mother fell in the
shower, there was hair down there, there were breasts up there—and the first
time I had sex—Mrs. Monica Fonseca—and it’s Sam Cooke in that passing car,
it’s the Eagles on a summer night when even people who get off on hating the
Eagles have to kind of love them.
You didn’t come to arrest me and you don’t know how hard I’ve worked for
this but here you are, dropping your skirt, peeling off your tights—Oh God, Joe.
Oh God—and your Murakami is so close I can smell it and you sit on the sofa
and I start to stand and you order me to sit and you stare at my pants so I unzip
them and is that okay? Yes, that’s okay.
Your eyes are on the road and your hands are on the wheel and we are going
to the fucking roadhouse in our own way and your nipples pop for me—Oh God,
Joe. Oh God—and the pages of your book were stuck together. Sealed off like
your legs below your tights but look at you now. Unglued. Slick. Oh God, Joe. Oh
Joe. You are inside of you, but you are there because of me.
I move again. I want to be Closer and again you shoo me off. Sit.
You won’t let me in today—you’re still married—but I am inside of you,
inside of your mind—and you came here to teach me and I am your pupil and
I’m a fast learner—This finger goes there. The thumb belongs here—and your knees
buckle and your toes curl and you finish first—Sisters before Misters—and you roll
up in a ball and hide your face in a red pillow. You know I’m getting close and
you peek and your eyes are just above the red pillow and I finish because of your
eyes.
You sigh. “Oh God, Joe.”
Again we don’t speak. We don’t move. Our bodies hum. The air is musty
with our sweat, our fluids. Do I hug you? Do I high-five you? I know you so well
but I don’t know you naked and you came here, in more ways than one, and are
you grossed out? Am I becoming an anecdote in your head—So this one time I
showed up at this guy’s house and touched myself while he jacked off, I mean that’s how
you know it’s time for couples counseling—and the serotonin is crashing. What do I
say to you? What do I do? Do I bring you water? Do I feed you?
And then you laugh. “Okay, I’m a little embarrassed.”
“Don’t be. That was very hot.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
You’re a fox and foxes need to move so you pick up your tights and you tell
me you’ve never done anything like this—you think you have to say that—and I
walk across the room. I take your tights in my hands. I breathe in the white
cotton center, the part that breathes you in, day in, day out. I am a gentleman.
You want your clothes so I hand over your tights and you laugh.
“This is just never an elegant activity, putting on tights.”
I run my hand up the back of your leg. “Agree to disagree.”
You pull away and I take my hand off your leg. You pull up your tights and
you fix your bun. “Huh,” you say. “I didn’t know you play guitar.”
“A little.” I should have hidden that fucking Philstick. “But not in a serious
way. I have an oboe too. And a flute.”
You smile. “And you play them all at once, right?”
We’re smiling again and I got us out of the jam. I bring you down to the red
sofa, the Red Bed. We are spooning. We are one. Your voice is small, scared. “I
don’t know what to say right now.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
Silence falls on us like Guterson’s snow falling on cedars. We are learning
what it feels like to be alone in private. You feel what I feel. Warm. Safe.
I shouldn’t tell you this but you’re here. You came. “So the day after we first
talked on the phone, before I started working at the library… I bought a
cashmere sweater.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I didn’t know it in the moment, but I got home and put it on
and realized it… it felt like you.”
“I think you’re aware that I like that sweater.”
Licious saunters into the room and you light up. “Oh God,” you gasp.
“Licious is even cuter in person. Come here, baby.”
Licious leaves the room—fucking cats—and you nestle into my chest and I
kiss your head. “All of our cats are cute.”
You stroke my chest. “I like the way you say that. Our cats.”
We could be teenagers on a beach in the nineties and we could be in the
hospital beds in our nineties and there’s something old about us together,
something young. And then you pat my hand. “Joe, I should probably go.”
I hold you. “You should probably not say ‘should probably’ so much.”
I get an F in pillow talk and you’re wiggling away, you’re on your feet and
you’re putting on your skirt and what do I say to make you stay? You pull on
one boot and then you reach for the other and then you flinch. “What was that
noise?”
The Whisper Room is almost soundproof and it better not be my dog. “I
think I have a mouse.”
“Well, don’t worry. Riffic will take care of that. He’s the toughest one in the
bunch.”
You are fully dressed by now and I’m still lying on the couch, a big spoon
with no little spoon underneath and I can’t read your face. Is that guilt? Regret?
You mumble something about humane mousetraps like we’re in a fucking
Facebook group chat about exterminators and I nod, like I give a shit about
mice right now.
I stand up. Do I touch you? Do I hug you? “Do you want something to eat?”
You shudder and tell me again that you should probably go and then you laugh
because of what I said about your should probablies and I should probably build a
time machine because I ruined it. The afterglow.
“See, Joe, this is the problem.” You open the door and you open your mouth
and you look at me and you look away and just say it, Mary Kay. “You should
probably stop being so perfect… I’ll um… I’ll see you soon, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Soon.”
Tastic creeps up on us and rubs against your leg and you pick him up and
coo. “Oh God, Tastic, you are the cutest, you are! You are my perfect little baby,
yes you are.”
You’re wrong—Tastic is the neediest and Riffic is the cutest—but I don’t
question your judgment and you go before I say something stupid and YES! You
called me “perfect” and that’s what I’m going to be from now on. If I were your
cat, my name would be Perfect.
When you’re gone, I lean my head against the door. I want you to pound on
the other side and beg for more, but that’s not gonna happen. Perfect men aren’t
greedy. They’re grateful. I go into the kitchen and I like the idea of us in split
screen, opening cabinets and going through the motions as we replay every
nanosecond of our first (almost) time. I put the overcooked salmon and the
blackened steak onto a plate. I get the Heinz ketchup. I grab a couple Hostess
Cupcakes and the tray is ready.
I glance at my red sofa. You were there. You’ll be there again.
I open the basement door. The tray is heavy and each step is a challenge. But
at the same time I have no fear of falling. I’m not walking. I’m floating. Perfect.
But then I make it to the bottom of the stairs and I stop short. Something is
wrong. The room is silent. Lifeless.
And then I see her. Melanda’s facedown on the floor of the Whisper Room.
There’s blood on the floor, on the glass wall, and the TV is down too. Shattered.
I drop my tray and I scream her name. “Melanda!”
I grope for my keys and I’m in the Whisper Room on my knees and I’m too
late. She used the television set and there is blood, so much blood, and I grab her
shoulders and I whisper. I hope. “Melanda, can you hear me?”
But her heart is silent—I am wasting my time—and that’s when I realize the
blood on the wall isn’t spatter. It’s writing. She used her own blood as ink.
Finger paint. Her last words, her goodbye:
Single White Female.
20
This isn’t a misdemeanor. This is a crime and Melanda’s the shark inside my shark,
the body in my house and it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. If you hadn’t
come over tonight…
No. This isn’t your fault. She did this. Not you. Not me. Melanda.
I can’t let my empathy get the best of me right now. She chose to end her life
on my property and she left me to do the dirty work, to clean up the mess. I turn
off the security cameras and delete my files—I don’t like snuff films—and if
some twisted voyeur techie already saw what she did, well that’s the point, isn’t
it?
She did it. Not me.
She will never be coming around again and as it all sinks in, well, in some ways
I could kill her for what she did to us. Her blood is on my fingertips, it’s on the
walls of my Whisper Room and she was in this room because she attacked me. I
grab her phone. I can’t call 911. I can’t trust the Injustice System—if only you
knew—and I can’t bury her in my yard. Fecal-Eyed Nancy is a nosy Nextdoor
app–addicted gossip and I crack a smile. Is there something wrong with me? No.
Laughing at funerals is a common phenomenon. We laugh at death because we
have to, because what is more ironic than being stuck with a very smart,
opinionated woman who can’t weigh in with her thoughts at a moment when I
could really use her fucking help?
I could take her to the dock and let her sink to the floor of the bay, but the
tide gets low. I could put her in the trunk and drive to the footbridge by 305 but
I like that footbridge. I could dump her in Murden Cove—the smell is bad
enough there as it is—but once again with the low fucking tide… For her it was
easy—Single White Female—but this is hell on me and unlike that daytime-soap-
loving sociopath in Fargo, I don’t have access to a wood chipper. And why would
I fucking want a wood chipper? It’s not like things worked out for him and we
all know how it ends—chills—and I will not end up in the back of a fucking
police cruiser.
Goddammit, Melanda, why me? Why my house? I know she had her reasons.
I’ve read the phone—I had to know everything about you—and I read her
journals—I had to know everything she won’t put in the phone. I know that as
recently as two weeks ago she was sick about never having had a baby.
I want to have one but then I go into Blackbird and those mommies are so smug as if
giving birth makes them more of a woman than me and they’re so BORING and they
think they’re so INTERESTING and how can I want to be one of them? UGH MK is
lucky she did it early before all these women turned into martyrs and HELLO they have
husbands and ok so the husbands don’t unload the dishwasher unless they’re asked to do
it but they do it, you know? MK is lucky and I’m not lol I know. Get over it! Sigh.
But she didn’t get over it and now look what she did to us. Single White
Female.
It’s hard to be alone, I know. We all need to let it out. But she listened to
that Carly Simon song about the hardships of relationships almost nine thousand
times and did any of it sink in? That song is about crimes and misdemeanors.
You break a window, you burn a soufflé, but you don’t break yourself. You get a
new shrink. You move. Seattle’s right there and isn’t that what you all think is so
great about this island? You walk onto the ferry and into the city and find
Frasier for fuck’s sake, or even Niles, but don’t do this. Don’t leave the planet
and don’t go in Blackbird when you damn well know there will be fecal-eyed
mommies in there wearing their babies in a circle jerk.
I’m sad for Melanda—she just couldn’t come around—and I am sad for me.
What do I do with her now?
I’m frozen—the Seattle freeze is officially real—and I can’t bring her to her
house. I can’t allow headlines in The Bainbridge Island Review—LOCAL FEMINIST
SLITS WRISTS—because headlines will lead to investigations and whispers. You
are all that matters and you can never know that she ended her life. Same way
you can never know that she was down here while we were up there and I wish
Melanda had never attacked me in the woods. I wish she’d moved to Minnesota
years ago, when the time was right.
I roll her body onto a duvet and I wrap her up like a burrito and it helps. I
don’t have to look at her corpse anymore. But then my eyes land on her bare feet
nothing stays the same—and oh, Melanda, why?
I take out her phone. She left me with no choice, Mary Kay. I have to make
you despise her. I have to burn the bridge and tell you what you shouldn’t have
to know so that you never want to speak to her ever again. She’s been your best
friend for a long time. You didn’t fight over Phil. You remained close as sisters,
jumping off the pier at Point White, spending Mother’s Day together, sharing
your daughter, the way you unknowingly shared your husband.
I close my eyes. I picture Melanda falling in love with Imaginary Carl. It’s
new for her. She tells him everything and he tells her that she has to end this
toxic friendship. You stole her boyfriend and you were young—I know—but at
some point we all have to own up to our past mistakes. People do this when
they fall in love, when they think they finally found their person. I did that with
Love. I told her everything about me. And now Melanda’s going to reach into
the bottom of her oversized broken heart.
Me as Melanda:
Sweetie this isn’t easy for me and it isn’t going to be easy for you but that’s part
of the problem. Life is easy for you. You breeze into things. Phil wanted you the
second he saw you and I said it was ok because what could I do? He didn’t feel
that way about me. He felt that way about you. You can’t make anyone love you.
I know that.
And that hurt. But I was there for you. I said to myself you know what, she’s
a good friend. I love her. So on we go.
After you had Nomi you told me you were happy I had an abortion because if
I hadn’t, you might have gotten cold feet with Nomi.
And that hurt. But I was there for you. I said to myself you know what, she’s
a good friend and I love her.
My thirtieth birthday and you threw me a surprise party and it was all
families and I was a third wheel on my own birthday and you could have had
the party at a bar.
And that hurt. But I was there for you. I said to myself you know what, she’s
a good friend and I love her.
The night before Mother’s Day. You invited me to “tag along” with you and
Nomi but you didn’t call the restaurant and change the reservation and I had to
sit at that table in the way of all the waiters and spent the whole meal
apologizing.
And that hurt. But I was there for you. I said to myself you know what, she’s
a good friend and I love her.
Last fall I told you I wish I had a boyfriend or a kid just so I had someone to
drive around with when the leaves are changing and you said aaww and the next
day you posted a picture of you and Nomi on the way to Fort Ward.
And that hurt. But I was there for you. I said to myself you know what, she’s
a good friend and I love her.
I read that Sarah Jio book and I told you it made me feel hopeful because look
at these sexy men lusting after this woman close to our age and you laughed and
said “Good luck” and then you asked if I ever heard back from that job in
Minneapolis.
And that hurt. But I was there for you. I said to myself you know what, she’s
a good friend and I love her.
Christmas. I told you I had the flu and you knew I was lying because you
know me and you didn’t come over and force me to come over even though you
knew I wasn’t sick.
And that hurt. But I was there for you. I said to myself you know what, she’s
a good friend and I love her.
I don’t want the pain anymore. I am not a good friend. So I can’t blame you
for not being a good friend to me.
I’m not gonna dress it up and I’m not gonna make excuses because it is what it
is and you need to know it.
Phil and I have been sleeping together for ten years. At my place. In his car.
At his studio and at that wealth management place by the pub. The bunkers at
Fort Ward.
I betrayed you. And I am sorry.
You betrayed me. And hopefully you are sorry.
Please respect my decision to walk away and save my own life. Nomi will
miss me but she has a mom and a dad who love her and she’ll be okay. Goodbye,
good love. M.
Send. Vomit. Breathe.
I carry my poor dog up the stairs and my pet is heavy and my house smells
like salmon. Licious and Tastic and Riffic are running around, lazing about,
cold as the grammar that inspired their names, acting as if nothing is wrong, as
if I’m not holding a dead fucking body. But in a way, nothing is wrong. I didn’t
kill this woman. I carry her body into my garage and I pop the trunk and I get
in the car and I start the car.
I turn on some Sam Cooke—got to stay positive—and I break the speed
limit, but only by five miles—the Injustice System better not fuck with me,
Mary Kay. Not tonight—and you told me to go to Fort Ward before we even
met and tonight, I’m finally doing it. You like Fort Ward and Melanda fucked
your husband at Fort Ward so that’s where Melanda will rest. I know how to get
there and I know where to park and I wanted to come here with you, not her.
It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. I kill my headlights. My heart thumps in my
chest. All it takes is one cop, one restless rambler, one set of horny teens. But it’s
January and it’s after midnight and time is the only thing on my side and thank
God for that.
I get out of the car. There are no cameras in the lot and I spot the tiny shack
the Meerkat talked about when we were coaching Mothballs with their iPhones
the moss on the roof is like the floor of a forest for Barbies—and there’s the opening
to the trail you told me about—quickest way to the bunkers is the first entrance—
and there’s the entrance I need: the long way up.
I strap the flashlight on my head—thanks, Cooley Hardware—and I ease RIP
Melanda out of the trunk. I don’t belong here. I did not kill her and Fort Ward
is not the Grand Forest and I hear you in my head, in my soul—When you do go
to Fort Ward, make sure you don’t walk off the trail because there are some surprisingly
steep drop-offs—and the trail is steeper than I anticipated and damn you,
Melanda, because this is the definition of injustice.
I didn’t kill her. I didn’t.
I struggle to stay upright and you weren’t kidding. This isn’t the Grand
Fucking Forest—the first part of the trail is paved, thank God—and it helps to have
you with me as I climb, as pavement gives way to rocky terrain. My thighs burn
—Sorry, Seamus, but this is harder than a Murph—and the endorphins kick in
and I am angry. I am sad.
I didn’t kill her. I didn’t do this.
But my heart is thumping faster and louder and my forehead is a sweaty foul
place and every time I put one foot in front of the other, I am steadier, my
muscles are adjusting. But then I am angrier by the second. An anger that taints
every endorphin in my body.
I didn’t fucking do this, Mary Kay. I didn’t.
I pass a chain-link fence, I’m getting there, and the black rocks work against
me, unstable enemies on the floor of the forest trying to take me down with
every step, and I am deaf with pain until finally the trail bends and to my left I
see the abyss—not as deep as I expected but deep enough—and I break away
from the trail. I’m a gentleman and I try to carry her but it is steep—you were
right—and eventually I just can’t hold on to her any longer.
“Sorry, Melanda.”
I drop her body and let it roll down into the core and she loses her duvet
along the way and it all comes back to me, the horror of what she did.
I run down the hill to wrap her up. I don’t like an open casket.
The ground is wet and loose as you said—I’m telling you, Joe, don’t walk off the
trail—and I dig into the earth with a trowel—thanks again, Cooley Hardware—
and my bare hands. I remember pottery in third grade and a field trip to the
beach when I was eight—nine?—and I dug and I dug but I didn’t find any crabs.
I dig like a dog, like a child, like my son, like a young Melanda by the sea,
sunburnt and full of hope for her future, resembling a young Carly Simon,
assuming they were on the same track in life and there is dirt in my fingernails
and the dirt is tainted by blood.
I didn’t do this, Mary Kay. I didn’t do this.
I help Melanda into her bed and I cover her with muck and large fat orange
leaves. She would want to be here. She wanted to give back to the community—
the future is female—and her incubator will come to fruition. I can’t help but feel
proud of my work. I laid her to rest and she’ll fertilize the land she loved so
much that she couldn’t leave it behind.
And this part, this I did do. This resting place is my work, my empathy, my
sweat.
I kiss my hand. I touch a leaf. “Sweet dreams, Ruby. Watch in peace.”
I wipe my hands on my shirt, my shirt I need to burn, and then white light
blasts me and it isn’t lightning. It isn’t nature. It’s man-made light. And where
there is man-made light, there are men.
“Say cheese, Goldberg.”
21
I know that voice and the Strawberry Killer followed me. He’s alone. I’m alone.
And this is the dark version of the poem about the second set of footprints in
the sand, when God is carrying the lonely, besieged man on the beach. The
Strawberry Killer didn’t save me. He followed me. He’s armed with a camera
and a flashlight and a gun and this is what I get for caring about Melanda so
much that I forgot to watch my back. This is what I get for trying to let her rest
in peace. I reach the trail and I’m out of breath and is this how I die?
“I didn’t… This isn’t what it looks like,” I say.
Even I know that’s a stupid thing to say but this is why people say it in the
movies so fucking much. Because it’s true. The Strawberry Killer points his gun
at me. “Turn around and put your hands behind your head, my friend. One step
at a time.”
That’s what a cop would say but a cop wouldn’t call me his friend.
I look up at the starry sky and as I take a step forward, I feel the press of
metal in my back. We pick our way down to the parking lot over divots and ruts
in the path. Is this it? Is this how it ends? Does Love win? My foot lands on a
stone and I lose my balance and the Strawberry Killer seizes my shoulder. I fall
back into line, marching in the dark. Am I going back to jail? I want to marry
you but this soft-shouldered preppy goon is going to bury me, isn’t he?
Finally, the parking lot comes into view, just two shadowy outlines of cars. I
want to make a run for it but the road ahead is wide and I am a fish in this
motherfucker’s barrel. Then, before I can paint a full picture of us in my mind,
before I can take one good shot at an escape, the back of my head explodes and
all the Christmas lights in the sky disappear at once.
I wake up with a lump on the back of my head and my throat is dry. It’s dark,
too dark to see but I’m not knocking on a door to heaven. I smell old blood and I
taste donuts and I wanna go home but I am home. I am in my Whisper Room
and the welt on the back of my head throbs.
I am groping in the dark and I might be bleeding. RIP Melanda only just
died—am I next?—and no I’m not next. You need me right now. It’s been hours
—has it?—and you must have read her fuck-you message by now and you must
be devastated, tearing at the walls, desperate to see me and I am on my feet. I
knock on the bloodstained glass wall—Gently, Joseph—and my cry in the dark is
met with singing—Some people call me the space cowboy—and the Strawberry
Killer is the kind of asshole who knows all the words to that preppy ditty. SK is
playing my guitar in the dark—trying to anyway—and I pound on the glass like
RIP Melanda and the guitar stops and the lights come on all at once.
His hair is slicked back—no Figawi hat down here—and he shakes his head.
“My, my, my,” he says. “Looks like someone’s got some cleaning up to do.”
It’s not my blood and it’s not my mess and a woman died in here and look at
her note. Single White Female. It’s almost like she knew this was coming, like she
knew I’d need a reminder that I’m not psychologically damaged like her.
“Okay,” I say. “I think there’s been a big misunderstanding.”
“So you didn’t just dump a body in the mud, my friend?”
Yes but no, and Mr. Mooney would tell me to know my enemy. “Who are
you?”
He waves like a bougie hippie at Pegasus on open mic night. “Oliver Potter,”
he says. “Any requests?”
I don’t make a request and I don’t like the joke and he thumbs my guitar and
he’s a full-blown Angeleno, Mary Kay, ice water in his veins, smug as Patrick
Bateman with an American Psycho thin-lipped smile. He’s laughing at me—who
tuned this guitar?—and I need to focus.
I’ve been here before and I got out before—You set yourself free, Joseph. I just
turned the key—and he strums and the feedback zings and he covers the mic and
winces. “Apologies, my friend.”
A real psycho wouldn’t be so considerate; Oliver is just someone who aspires
to be a psycho. He has a Glock—a gun in a barrel, a barrel in a gun—and my
weapon is superior: my brain.
“So,” he says. “Walk me through it, Goldberg. You kill off the stage-twelve
clinger bestie…” Lie. I didn’t kill Melanda. “And then you win your little MILFy
librarian over with a six-string? And then you set a jealousy trap and just like
that, boom, you’re back in Pac Pal with Love?”
His theory is a scratch on the record and he is wrong. I don’t want Love. I
want you. And this is why I’m in the cage, to learn, to face the reality that I’ve
been fighting, that I do feel guilty about shifting gears, not missing my son as
much as I once did, accepting our fate to be apart. You see it in memes all the
time. Life is change. But change is hard. Look at RIP Melanda’s blood letter. She
couldn’t do it. She couldn’t come to terms with the person she was, the person
she wanted to be. But I can. Oliver tunes my guitar and sneers—Your D string is
about to pop, Goldberg—and I won’t pop. I study my enemy; his T-shirt is old, not
vintage. He didn’t drop four hundred bucks for it in some Hulkshit man-
boutique in Venice. He grew up in that shirt. There are pit stains. Grease stains.
The logo is BAXTER’S BOATHOUSE and that’s probably some waterfront dump in
Florida and I shrug. “I don’t really have a plan, honestly.”
“Well,” he says, really going for that aspiring sociopath—psychopath?—vibe.
“If you ask me, my friend, your MILF’s not worth it. Too much baggage. And
Love’s not really the jealousy-trap type. You would have been better off with
your first plan, which I can only assume was to win her back with your music.
You are not a MILF. You are a fox. And I am not Phil. “What’s Baxter’s?”
Oliver looks down at his shirt as if he forgot that he was wearing it and he’s
insecure. That’s good news for me and he pulls at the hem. “Well, actually,” he
says. “I used to work at this place in high school, the first family that ever owned
me, pre-Quinns. Seems you and I have that in common.”
“The Quinns don’t own me.”
“You keep telling yourself that, my friend. See the key to life is knowing that
you are owned and maximizing the potential of said ownership. I wrote a pilot
about Baxter’s. Shitty script, but it got me my first agent because the bones were
there.”
I think of RIP Melanda’s bones, the animals that might be finding her at this
moment and oh God, Oliver is a writer. I play along. I tell him what he wants to
hear, that I never thought about it that way, that I worked at a bookstore in
high school, that the owner did kind of own me. He nods, pleased, because
writers don’t want to write. They just want to be right about every stupid
fucking thing in the world. “Well, yes, my friend. Oh also… cute cats you got.
Three of ’em. Quite a statement.”
They’re kittens, asshole, and I hang my head in fake shame. Writers are
narcissists who want to tell their stories, so I ask Oliver where he’s from and he
says he grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
“Do you know where that is, Goldberg?”
Fuck you, I’m not dumb. “Yep. How did you meet the Quinns?”
He wants control—typical writer—so he tweaks a knob on the guitar. “How
do you deal with this, Goldberg? Your G string is mad fucked.”
His hand slips on the guitar and he blames my string, the way a bad tennis
player blames a racquet and then he puts the guitar on the floor and now I guess
we’re supposed to pretend he never touched it. “You seem pretty calm for
someone in a cage, my friend.”
“Well,” I say. “You made a good point…” Praise the writer. “The Quinns own
this house, technically, so it was only a matter of time.”
“They really screwed you with this shit box.”
“Are you kidding? Did you see my view?”
“Yes, Goldberg. You live in a house on an island. And you have a view of…
the other side of the island. Well done there, my friend.”
STOP CALLING ME YOUR FRIEND, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.
I calmly tell him that I found the house myself, that Winslow is ideal because
you can walk to everything. He strokes his chin—why do bad guys always have
strong jawlines?—and he says that he would have chosen Rockaway or Lynwood
and that’s another thing about sociopaths, Mary Kay. They like to talk about
real estate. I am patient. The goal is freedom so I tell him that I agree—I don’t—
and he picks up the guitar—no—and whines about my B string and guitars
really do bring out the worst in men, don’t they?
“Come on, Goldberg. Let’s be real. What is there to walk to around here?”
“Everything. The main drag is right down the street. You know, where you
saw me.”
“Main drag? You mean that strip of menopause wine bars that shuts down at
eleven? You call that a main drag? You lived in L.A., my friend. Come on now.
Be real with me.”
My heart beats for you, for the power to shatter this glass and throw him in
the water for daring to slander our home.
Oliver pulls my keys out of his pocket. “All right,” he says. “I know your story
so I suppose it’s only fair if you know mine. Basic chords are as follows. Born
and bred on the Cape. Burnt my wrists on the fryolator. Went to Emerson,
wrote some good plays, wrote some not so good plays…” His plays are all shit.
“Hightailed it out to L.A. when I got a gig on a Law & Order spin-off…” That
word should be banned: gig. “Banged out an episode of Law & Order: Los Angeles
but the show went away…” As did his career. “Waited tables. Kept in touch with
a consultant from the show who was a PI. He convinced me to get into that
game, which he said would actually be better in the long run, in terms of my
writing…” Like I give a fuck and writers assume readers are stupider than we
are. “Got into the PI game, got my brother Gordy into it when he came out
west…” It’s a turning point when he mentions his brother because for the first
time, Oliver doesn’t seem entirely deluded and narcissistic. He is proud of what
he did for his brother and he sighs. “I had a mentor. I had it made. But the
Quinns did to us what they did to you, my friend.”
“What’s that, Oliver?”
“Gordy and I were doing really well with Eric. Eric was my mentor…” Say it
again, Oliver and I hope I don’t repeat myself this much. “The Quinns wanted
Eric’s help with their piece-of-shit son, Forty. Eric had a rule. He would do
anything for the Quinns, anything but help that piece-of-shit Forty.”
I stare the fucker down. “You know my kid’s named after him, right?” And
this is why I told Love that saddling our son with that stupid, tainted name was
a bad idea.
“Yes, my friend, and I feel for you. I do.” And then he sighs, wanting to get
back to his story. “Long story short…” It’s a little late for that, Oliver. “Eric
turned down the gig. The Quinns turned around and offered the job to me and
Gordy. And we’ve been working for them ever since.”
“What a nice story.”
“Joe, Joe, Joe, I’m not the bad guy here. I hate the Quinns just as much as you
do. You should see where they’re putting me up, this second-rate motel with
powdered eggs in the lobby and a mattress so thin I can barely sleep, which is
why my back is fucked up and I can’t get the right angle on the strings on this
piece-of-shit Gibson.”
“Well, maybe you should file a complaint with HR.”
“Look, my friend, I’m trying to make you see that the Quinns have me locked
up, just like you. They gave me a job. They gave you this shit box. But they own
us, Joe.”
I go into RIP Melanda mode. I can’t help it. “Oliver, you locked me up in
here. Our situations are nothing alike.”
“Are you kidding? I saved Forty’s ass on a rape charge before he kicked the
bucket. You got in through the sister. We saved their precious fucked-up kids.
We both took their money.”
“I didn’t get in through the sister, Oliver. I loved her.”
He smiles. “Does your MILF know that?”
I ignore the question and he sighs. “You say you want out. But do you mean
it?”
“Yes, I mean it. Let’s talk out there. It reeks in here.”
“I’m talking big picture, my friend. Why are you living on this poor man’s
Nantucket?”
“I chose to move here. That has nothing to do with the Quinns. I wanted to
leave L.A. and I wanted to live here and I chose this house.”
“Ah,” he says. “So you wanted to abandon your son?”
“Fuck no, Oliver. That’s different. I didn’t have a choice about that and you
know it.”
Oliver nods. Smug. “And finally, light dawns on Marblehead.”
Oliver’s just like RIP Melanda, Mary Kay. He doesn’t believe that people can
grow and change their minds and I don’t want to be analyzed by this failed
writer turned Privacy Invader and I tell him he’s right—it hurts—and I ask him
what happens next. Any good writer should be able to answer that question but
Oliver failed as a writer.
“We’ll get to that,” he says. “First, I gotta know. What was your magic
number?”
“You mean what did they pay me? Oliver, they pointed a gun at my head. I
had to sign the contract.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was it? Eight mill to leave your kid? Ten?”
This is why I’m in the cage. Oliver isn’t entirely wrong and I did it. I took the
money. But I didn’t sell my son.
“Four million,” I say. “Plus the house.”
“The house they bought for you.”
“The house is in my name.”
“Well, isn’t that nice of them? My Benz is in my name too. Thing is though, I
can’t afford the payments if I quit working for them.”
I don’t want to be like Oliver and I am not like Oliver. “Okay,” he says. “Brass
tacks. I have video of you and the dead chick…”
Woman not chick and I tell him I didn’t kill her and he sighs. “Well, my
friend, if I called the local yokel cops right now and they saw you in that room
with her blood on the walls…”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“It doesn’t matter, Goldberg. All that matters is how it looks. Now listen up.
I sent those pictures to Gordy but Gordy has not shown those pictures to Ray…
If he does that, you’ll get thrown in jail, and they won’t need me to watch you
anymore. I’ll be out of a job. The Quinns will win.”
“What do you want?”
Oliver settles into his chair like any aspiring writer about to pitch his shitty
story and I am the executive so I lean forward because I have to lean forward. I
want to buy his pitch. I want to get the fuck out of here and be with you. “You
and me are from the wrong side of the trust fund, my friend. The Quinns found
us. They see our potential, our brains, and they like to squash it because their
own kids never had what we have. We’re not a part of the old boys’ club and we
never will be, but what we have here is an opportunity to create a young boys’
club. A poor boys’ club, if you will.”
“Oliver, I don’t follow. What do we do in this ‘club’?”
He’s a defensive writer so he tells me that I don’t have to follow as if it’s my
fault that his pitch is muddled. “We help each other out. I don’t show Ray what
you did to this chick and you help me because you got paid a helluva lot more
than I did, my friend.”
“You want money.”
“My mom’s sick, so my cash flow is a bit tight.” He’s human again, the way he
was when he first mentioned his brother, and he breaks eye contact. “My mom
has cancer and fuck cancer is right because that shit is expensive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“And my girlfriend Minka… she’s a ten…” I hate it when men do that, when
they rate you like they hold the cards and you’re all in swimsuits. “And a ten has
certain expectations of a man and I want to hold on to my ten and we just
moved in and the walls are a little bare for her tastes and she’s all about the
reno, she’s way into antiques and she’s going for this Sweet American Psycho
vibe…” I knew it. I knew his hair was on purpose. “So you help me keep my ten
in antiques and I help you keep those Quinns off your back.”
I can’t say yes fast enough but then Oliver makes a face that reminds me of
his failed screenwriting aspirations. He stares at the blood on the windows. “I
know you, Goldberg. And it’s important that you know me. Gordo and I
communicate in a very unique way and if he contacts me and doesn’t hear back
in our very unique way, he shows Ray the pictures and you’re in a cage that
smells a lot worse than this one. Point is, you make me go away, you go away
too. You feel me?”
“I get it. I’m in.” And then I say what he wants to hear, the name of his show.
“Poor Boys Club is on.”
Oliver puts the key in the door but then he hesitates. It’s a myth about cages
and I’ve been where he was, I was just there a few hours ago, holding the key,
aware that my life was at stake too. “When I was a screenwriter”—No, Oliver,
you wrote one episode of television—“we had this phrase on the nose.” I’m not a
moron but it’s kind of like hanging out with Seamus. Sometimes you have to let
your Friends think they’re broadening your horizons so I nod like that phrase is
foreign to me. “What you did to this chick tonight was too on the nose, too on
brand. So when I let you outta here, you’re gonna behave. No more of the bad
shit. No Instastalking Love, no dead chicks in the dungeon. Nada. Zilch.
Nothing. You so much as steal a plastic fork from Starbucks and you’re done.”
Oliver turns the key. “Wait,” he says. “Do you have a 1stdibs account?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He lets me out of the cage as if it isn’t in my house and he hands me my
phone.
“Download the 1stdibs app,” he says. “Pronto.”
I download the rich-people shopping app and I open an account and I look
at him. “Now what?”
“Search for ‘Mike Tyson,’ ” he says. “There’s a portrait by Albert Watson and
you’re gonna buy it for me.”
I blow twenty-five thousand dollars on a photograph of Mike Fucking Tyson
and Oliver stretches his arms—those pit stains are worse up close—and he asks
me where I store my cleaning products. “Amateurs don’t know how to clean up
after a crime. We don’t want the Poor Boys Club to end before it starts.”
I give Oliver a mop and I find a bottle of bleach and soon we’re scrubbing
Melanda’s last words from the glass wall. Oliver sneezes into his elbow. “At my
first job back home, I had to clean the women’s bathroom at the ferry dock.
Nothing will ever be as nasty as that.”
“I worked in a bookstore,” I say. “This guy used to jack off on our National
Geographics and my boss made me scrape off his jizz with a letter opener.”
“Jesus,” he says. “Maybe the Quinns aren’t that bad.” And then he winks.
“Kidding, Joe. Kidding.”
Finally, we finish the job and the Whisper Room is spotless. Oliver is on his
way out the door—See you on Menopause Avenue—and in an ideal world, I would
call you right now. But we don’t live in an ideal world, Mary Kay.
I pick up Melanda’s phone and I enter the pass code and I prepare for the
worst. You know it all now. You’ve had time to read, obsess over every detail.
Your heart might be broken… if I did a good job. Did you believe it was her?
And if you did, is this betrayal going to put you off men? Off me? What do you
say to the woman who violated your trust for ten fucking years? I open
Melanda’s text messages and…
22
Nothing! Your best friend shocks you with a revelation about fucking your
husband and she breaks up with you via text message and all you said was: Be well.
Xo. I go to Instagram and Nomi still follows Melanda—maybe you didn’t tell
her?—but you unfollowed Melanda.
Women are strange. You’re in the library all day acting as if nothing has
changed, like you didn’t climax for me in my house. Nomi comes in with muddy
boots and you are Carol Fucking Brady. “Nomi honey, can you wipe your
boots?”
And she is Cindy Fucking Brady. “Sorry, Mom.”
Last month, when you told her to wipe her muddy boots off she barked at
you and flipped you the bird and you flipped her the bird right back. But today
she’s calm. You’re calm. It’s all way too fucking calm and does Nomi know that
you unfollowed her aunt? Are you pretending that you and your
Murafuckingkami didn’t put on a show for me in my living room? Every time
you’re within ten feet, I brace myself for you to tap me on the shoulder and ask
if we can talk. We almost had sex! We have to talk. But you remain calm,
distant. I poke the tiger. I leave Dolly in the middle of Cookbooks—you hate
that—but you just move the cart out of the aisle and eat lunch on your own at
your desk. The Meerkat comes back before we close up shop and knocks on the
desk—you hate that too—and you smile. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Did Dylan’s mom’s book get here yet?”
“Sorry, honey, I’ll text you when we get it.”
She storms out the door without saying goodbye and still you are calm. Dead
calm.
This is the calm before the storm. I know that foxes are stealthy and you’re
busy designing your escape. I see you, Mary Kay, I see you on the cusp of
blocking out what happened between us because it’s too much, on top of that
note you got from RIP Melanda.
But I am busy too. It’s not easy having a stalker and Oliver Fucking Potter is
a stalker, and I need to get off this rock and pick up some supplies if I’m going
to save you from your overly active guilty conscience. Think, Joe, think. Oliver’s
motel is across from the Starbucks and I tell him I’m placing a mobile order and
I ask him if he wants to meet up. He asks for a tall hot blond—such an asshole—
and I place the order and tell him I’ll be there in ten minutes.
Now he’s at Starbucks, blowing up my phone—where are you—and I tell him
that I had a change of plans—Sorry Oliver, I have to go to Seattle for an interlibrary
loan issue. He’ll never catch me now and he knows it. His response is terse but
respectful: Well played, my friend.
Amen to that, Oliver, and I board the ferry with all the passive-aggressive
cliquey commuters. I sit in a chair and a limp-dick Amazon drudge juts out his
jaw.
“You’re gonna sit there?”
“Yes, I’m going to sit here.”
“Well, sometimes one of our friends sits here.”
Fascinating. I smile and put on my headphones. “I guess not today, then.”
In the city, I use my Quinn cash to buy cameras and that’s one good thing
about Oliver Fucking Potter. He reminded me that I have money. And money is
power.
I book a hotel room in a Marriott and I send Oliver a picture of the receipt
and then my phone rings. Oliver.
“Not cool, Joe.”
“Oliver, I’m too freaked out to be in my house. I just need one night.”
He hangs up on me—all friends fight—and sends me a link to an Andy
Warhol print on 1stdibs called Peaches. And then a text: Don’t fuck with me again,
Goldberg.
I buy him the Peaches and I leave the Marriott and hop back on the ferry—no
cliquey commuters, just lonely lost souls hoping that the cutesy ways of
Winslow lift them out of their misery—and it’s a relief knowing that Oliver
won’t be tailing me for the rest of the night.
I buy a beer from the canteen—it’s stressful, having a stalker—and I check
Melanda’s phone when I disembark. I can’t use her to get to you anymore—I
miss our talks, me as Melanda, you as you—and you didn’t write anything more.
The beer is cold. You are cold. You don’t reach out to me and I wish you would,
Mary Kay. I worry about you. Did you sleep last night? Are you crying in the
shower like Glenn Close in The Big Chill or are you attacking your rat husband
like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction?
I have to know how you are, Mary Kay. I know Melanda’s message was a lot
to take in. I know you probably think you’re a bad person and you’re not a bad
person. I relate to you more than ever. I couldn’t worm my way into my family
with Love and you’re still trying to find your place on this rock after twenty
years but your place is with me.
You need me to watch out for you and I jog on the Eagle Harbor trail and it’s
a little unnerving, to be honest. I’m still not over what happened—damn you,
RIP Melanda—and I step off the trail onto your lawn and I pause. The quiet.
The stillness. You and the Meerkat went to Costco after work—Nomi calls it
#RetailTherapy, buying paper towels in bulk to clean up the mess of your life—
and your rat is in Seattle waiting for a former Sub Pop photographer to show
up. Alas, that’s not gonna happen because I’m the one who sent the fake email
and I’m the one apologizing to Phil, assuring him that I’ll be there soon, man. In
the Richard Scarry sense of the world, everyone in my life is busy being busy.
And I’m busy too.
It’s only ten steps to the sliding glass door and it’s a good thing that your
husband is such a devout we-don’t-lock-our-doors kind of asshole because that
means your door is open. I grip the handle and the door squeaks—Jesus, Phil,
take care of your home—and for the first time in our life together, I am in your
house.
Nomi wasn’t kidding, Mary Kay. You really do like your tchotchkes and your
shelves are littered with literary toys. I spy a Shakespeare doll and a Virginia
Woolf puppet—who makes that, who?—and a tiny Bell Jar and I know what this
is all about. You buy tchotchkes so that you can pretend that your home is the
Empathy Bordello Bar & Books. It’s how you cope. You’ve been living in denial
for nearly twenty years, trying hard not to see the horror around you—RIP
Melanda playing footsie with Phil at the pub while you all eat brunch—and Phil’s
passive-aggressive refusal to let his old songs go—a crate in a barrel, a barrel in a
gun—and you’ve spoken no evil, throwing salmon steaks into the freezer, onto
the grill, repeat infinity.
And it’s not just the tchotchkes that alarm me, Mary Kay. Your house is a
shrine to the nineties and the early aughts, when you all lived up by Hidden
Cove in Manzanita. It’s like the two of you are sending a dangerous message to
your daughter, that everything good, every memory worth preserving was
almost twenty years ago, before she was even born.
You have his debut album framed, but all the other albums are in your
garage, as if they don’t exist. I pick up a picture of you that’s almost nineteen
years old. I recognize the background, the tiny one-home island they call
Treasure Island. You cradle your newborn baby and you look like a child bride.
Your smile is a cry for help and you are trying to hide a second set of teeth while
you just die underneath and I see what no one else wanted to see. A woman
trapped, held at gunpoint but in this case the gun is your husband’s Philstick.
I could spend hours exploring your photographs, tracing the disintegration
of your love and your marriage, as spontaneous photos of your family bonding by
the bunkers at Fort Ward—RIP Melanda—give way to uncomfortable staged
shots on holidays—Say cheese for the timer on the iPhone and everyone be sure and
mask your misery!—but Costco’s not that far away and I’m not here to visit your
family museum.
I’m here to help you shut it down.
I set up cameras in the living room—one across from Phil’s chair—and I set
up cameras in the kitchen—this is where you hide from your rat’s guitar—and I
put cameras in the most fetid part of your house: your bedroom.
It smells like him, not you, and the rat has a bunch of his own scratched-
beyond-repair compact fucking discs and what is it with you people and the
past?
My phone buzzes and I flinch. It’s Oliver: Update.
I’m so sick of that word. He’s requested eight updates already today. The rule
is simple: When he asks for an update, I have to give him a fucking update.
I leave your house the way I came in and I’m on the trail and the trail is
empty and I send Oliver a picture I took earlier of the view from my hotel room
—and I follow up that picture with a link to Mackintosh chairs on 1stdibs. He
sends me an order—Good eye, buy ’em—and I purchase the fucking chairs and
send him a screenshot of the confirmation. It’s another eight grand gone but I’ve
noticed a pattern. The more I lean in to my role as Oliver’s personal shopper, the
more time passes between his fucking Update texts.
I stop into T & C and pick up spicy popcorn—gotta nosh while I watch the
Very Special Episode of your family sitcom tonight—and I put the popcorn into
my reusable tote bag—we save the planet together—and I walk home and head
down to my Whisper Room—cleaner now than it was when I moved in—
thanks, Oliver!
The cameras are A-plus level of good and it’s like magic. There you are in the
kitchen! Here comes Nomi with her backpack.
“I’m going to the bookstore.”
“Now? They close soon.”
“Well, you forgot to order my book at the library.”
“Nomi, the loan system is tricky… I don’t want to fight but can you at least
consider reading something that isn’t Columbine-related? It’s getting a little…
Nomi, please.”
Nomi stares at the stove top and my cameras are high def. Top shelf. “Soup’s
on fire.”
The soup’s steaming but it’s not on fire and the Meerkat is gone and you
pour that goddamn soup into the disposal and the door slams as Nomi leaves
and Phil walks in. The TV show is about to get real and I shove a handful of
popcorn in my mouth.
Phil doesn’t sit at the table and he doesn’t ask you what happened to the
soup. He just stands there. You rinse out the pot. You don’t greet him. It’s a
Mexican standoff and this is it. I can already hear you saying it in my head. Phil,
I want a divorce.
You drop the pot in the sink and clench the edge of the counter with both
hands. He doesn’t move. As if he knows you want to kill him.
“What now, Emmy?”
“I have one of your songs stuck in my head.”
He smiles and oh you’re good. “Oh yeah, which one?”
“Well, the one about the shark, of course.”
He’s a little disappointed because everyone knows that one. “Ah,” he says.
“Well, I’m working on something now that’s gonna put that shark to sleep.
Something way better…”
“You know, Phil, I always loved that song…” You gaze at him and he smiles. “I
loved it because it was so raw. It was about us, the tension of a new baby… the
feeling of your life changing from the inside out. It’s funny, though. I never
knew that it was actually about Melanda.”
BOOM. I turn up the volume and Phil digs his hands into his dirty pockets.
“Shit… Emmy. Hang on now. That song is about us.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Phil, I don’t give a shit about the fucking song right now.
You and Melanda? Behind my back? For how many years?”
“Emmy, let me… shit.
“Yeah,” you say. “That’s what you are. Both of you. A couple of pieces of shit.
You pick up a sponge and squeeze the dirty water. Sponges are filthy by
design and you can run it through the dishwasher but it will never be clean
again. You pick at the dirty grout on your counter. “The worst part is… Jesus, all
this time I think of myself as the person who makes you happy…”
“You do.”
“Oh fuck you, Phil. You do not get to say that right now. She was my best
friend and you… I want you out.”
I clap my hands. YES.
“Emmy, you don’t mean that. You know there is no me without you. Baby,
I’m a fuckup, okay?”
He drops to his knees and he’s pawing at your legs like the dog that he is and
he’s crying and I want you to kick him in the face but now you’re crying and I
drop my popcorn on the floor and no. Don’t cry, Mary Kay. This isn’t your fault.
He’s bellowing that he deserves to be dead and you’re taking care of him as if he
didn’t FUCK YOUR BEST FUCKING FRIEND.
You help him to his feet and he’s blubbering and shaking and sobbing in
your soup-stained pot and he pukes in your pot and you rub his shoulders.
“Emmy, I’m the worst piece of shit on the planet.”
“Phil, stop it.” Your voice is soft.
“I never deserved you. You think I don’t know that? And Melanda… she… she
threatened to ruin our life. She got off on hurting you and I didn’t… I’m a piece
of shit.”
“Phil, come on. You’re making yourself sick.”
You hold a paper towel up for him like he’s a child and he blows his nose and
you wipe his tears away and I throw my popcorn at the TV because no. You
need to get mad. He’s casting aspersions on Melanda and you’re assuring him
that she’s out of our lives and she wasn’t the bad guy.
Phil is your fucking husband, Mary Kay. And if Tyler Perry were here he
would tell you to grab that pot and fill it with hot grits and smash it over his
head. If Melanda were here—Goddammit—she would remind you about the
fucking sisterhood. But look at you, mopping up his tears as you soak in his
manipulative words.
“I don’t deserve you, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. It’s like,
my old man’s been telling me I’m not good enough since I’m a kid, and then I
get clean but I gotta find another way to get dirty to prove my old man right. I
should blow my fucking brains out.”
“Phil, stop it. I mean it.”
This can’t be happening, Mary Kay. You’re forgiving him for what is
unforgivable. Ask the Bible. Ask anyone, Mary Kay.
HE FUCKED YOUR BEST FRIEND AND THAT IS WRONG THE END.
You blow your nose into his flannel and your marriage is ugly, unhygienic.
“Okay, Phil… Look, I can’t be a hypocrite. I’m not perfect either.”
He pulls away, slightly, and I zoom in, slightly. Your empathy is your own
worst enemy right now. And he knows it. Don’t you see that?
“What do you mean you’re not perfect?” he says. “Is there something I should
know about? Someone I should know about?”
He’s not crying anymore. He can fuck your best friend and demand
immediate forgiveness but you say one tiny thing about your own life and he
shuts down on you. Opposites attract. But opposites destroy.
“God, no,” you say. “I only meant that I should have figured this out sooner.”
You’re not a very good liar and you can’t compare our relationship to what he
did to you.
He grabs a Ulysses saltshaker and throws it at a cabinet—broken! Broken as
the clock on the ferry!—and he exits stage left screaming at you, calling you all
kinds of names. He’s in the living room stomping back and forth—what a big
strong man!—and he says he always knew you’d do this to him and you want to
know how he can say that after what you just found out about him and he spits
at you.
“You’re a fucking tramp. Look at the way you dress.”
“The way I dress? I wear a skirt so I’m asking for it? Do you really wanna go
there right now?”
“Do you see other women around here wearing skirts?”
“Fuck you, Phil.”
That’s more like it and he growls. “Who is it?”
“Well,” you say. “I’ll tell you this much. It’s not your best friend.
He grabs a ceramic Brontë sister doll and throws it at a picture frame—BAM
—and he wants to know who it is. “I told you. I deserve the same honesty,
Emmy.”
“Do you hear yourself, Phil? You didn’t tell me anything. I’m the one who
confronted you. And I’m trying to be compassionate. I’m trying to be
reasonable.”
“Who the fuck is it? Is he here? Do I know the bastard?”
“That’s your question? Do I know the bastard? Oh Phil, I just… That’s all you
care about. If you know him. I tell you that I have feelings for another man and
you don’t want to know what I’m missing… you just want to know if you can
talk about him on your fucking show. And the answer is no, by the way. Unlike
you, he doesn’t air his grievances five nights a week. Unlike you, he reads.
That was for me! An Easter egg just for me and I’m off-camera but I’m on the
only screen that matters, the one in your head. “Yes! You go, Mary Kay!”
Phil kicks at the carpet like a bull in a pen. “Who is he, Mary Kay? Who’s
your fucking boyfriend?”
“This isn’t about my boyfriend and this isn’t about Melanda either. This is
supposed to be about us. About me.”
You called me your boyfriend and I pop a little more popcorn into my
mouth and Phil picks up another tchotchke but this time he doesn’t throw it.
Hopefully it will break in his hand and he won’t be able to play guitar anymore.
You’re tense. You’re walking in circles. And then you stop. “Hello.”
He says nothing.
You slap your thighs. It’s so over. “So that’s it? You’re gonna shut down and
act like nothing happened?”
“Well, that’s me, Emmy. You hide in your books. I play my guitar.”
“Oh right. Shame on me because I like to read. Shame on me for wishing I
had the kind of husband who wanted to go to the meadow with me and curl up
in the bunkers with our books.”
“That was high school.”
“So was your fucking music.”
Down goes another tchotchke and I love this show. You do too. You clap
your hands. Disgusted golf claps. “Well done,” you say. “More for me to clean up.
Tell me, were you off with Melanda when I was reading and being stupid enough
to believe that you were writing your fucking ‘songs’?”
Phil huffs and he puffs. Literally, he’s lighting a cigarette. “It’s always the
same,” he says. “You wanna hide from life and I wanna live it.”
You gawk at him as well you fucking should. “Oh, that’s rich, Phil. Really,
really rich. So I suppose you’re the hero because you’re the writer. You
humiliated me with your fucking songs and you fuck my best friend and
somehow that’s okay because oh right! Phil is an artist!”
This is it, the end of your marriage, and I pump my fist in the air. “You tell
him, Mary Kay!”
“And as we all know, artists are gifted. And they need things to write about
so I guess I should just bow my head and stock the fridge because music comes
first in this house! Never mind me, never mind oh I don’t know… never mind
loyalty.You are trembling now. “She was my best friend. She was like my sister.
She was Nomi’s aunt… and you wrecked it. All of it.”
He flicks ashes on a dirty plate. “Yeah,” he says. “Well, that’s one thing the
three of us have in common. We deal with you, Emmy. And being in it with
you… well, that’s the loneliest kinda lonely there is. Ask Melanda. Ask Nomi.
They’ll back me up all night long, babe.”
You march up to him and slap his face and I want to give this show a
thousand stars and Phil just shakes his big fat head. He reaches for your hand.
You let him hold it and he starts to cry—fake news, fake tears—and he’s groping
you and he’s all apologies and he says he didn’t mean it—yes he did—and he’s
begging you to forgive him and over and over he says the same thing: “I never
wrote a song about her, Em. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
That’s a lie—he sent me the song—and you know that sorry doesn’t cut it but
the man is a performer. He’s a good crier. You rub your forehead. You know this
man doesn’t understand you and how could he? You’re staring through your
glass doors and you’ve wasted the bulk of your life with this artist. You want a
new life. A life with me. You said it at Hitchcocks. I didn’t think someone like you
existed. I am your fresh start. Me.
Tell him, Mary Kay. Tell him you love me.
Tell him you would be happier in the Nirvana meadow in the tall grass with
the one you love, being innocent with me, forever young, forever old, feeding our
hungry souls with words, with stories. Tell him you’ve outgrown him and that
you can’t go on pretending that any of this fits. Tell him that you wanted it to
work for Nomi’s sake, but now you have this friendless unfiltered daughter who
wants to read about teenage serial killers and you see the light.
You walk away from him. It’s a step. Literally, metaphorically. You are even
closer to the window.
Tell him, Mary Kay. Tell him that he was the love of your young life, that
you don’t hate him. You wanted to be on a pedestal and tell him that what hurts
the most isn’t that he cheated with Melanda, but that deep down you don’t
really care because of how you feel about me, the partner you want, the lover
you deserve. Me.
Phil walks to the CD player—you live in the nineties, in the past—and he
digs around and he finds what he wants and he plays what he wants and it’s Jeff
Fucking Buckley’s voice and it’s Leonard Cohen’s words.
“Hallelujah.”
This is not where we were headed and he cups your face in his hands. “I need
you.”
“Phil…”
“I miss you.”
This is why we should have had a full-on fucking affair. He’s getting to you.
You want me but I’m here and he’s there. His hands move along your body and
you close your eyes and from your lips he draws a kiss and you don’t really care for
your rat, do ya? He habitually abuses you with his own lyrics and now he seduces
you with Cohen’s, whispering in your ear about faith and there you are, letting
him croon a better man’s words as he slides his hand under your skirt.
I clench the bag of popcorn. He is a boa and he unzips your slutty skirt and
tightens his grip on your neck and he tells you that you’re a bad girl and he bites
your ear and he shreds your tights and somehow he has six hands, eight hands.
Your shirt is off and his jeans hit the floor and he’s inside of you—he breaks your
throne and pulls your hair—and you moan as if you want that, as if you like that.
You pretend to finish—there is no way you liked that—and he lifts you up like
the pipe-smoking captain to your legless mermaid. That was our Normal
Norman Rockwell painting at the pub and now you’re in it with him, in the
cage of his arms, your marriage. He lights another cigarette and he spoons you
on the sofa and his ashes hit your tits. You wince and he kisses the places where
he burnt you and you do not go together. We do. He puts his butt out in your
half-empty cup of coffee and he strokes your Murakami with his nicotine-
stained hand, callused fingers. “All right,” he says. “Are you gonna call Layla or
do you want me to?”
You laugh like that was funny and you sigh. “Oh come on, Phil. We both
know that you’re not gonna call. Can you do tomorrow at one?”
He squeezes you in a way I never have, with his arms and his legs. “I’ll do
whatever you want me to do, Emmy. You’re my girl. I’d die without you. You
know that, right?”
You’re gonna let him fuck you again—you’re the second set of teeth—and I turn
off my TV but I still see him—the thorns hide in the wreath—and spicy kernels
tickle my throat. I choke and up comes all that indigestible popcorn, shooting
out of my mouth, and I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath.
Phil isn’t Leonard Cohen and he isn’t Jeff Buckley but I’ve never moved in
you the way he has, the way he does and it’s a cold and broken clock of a
Hallelujah. I pour Woolite onto your favorite black sweater and I google “Layla”
and “couples counseling” and “area code 206” and there she is in Poulsbo, your
licensed sanity killer: Layla Twitchell. She’s your enabler, your enemy in plain
sight, the woman who tries to save your marriage, the woman you pay to save
your marriage. It’s tempting to get in the car and drive to Poulsbo and make
Layla pay for her sin, but I’m not that guy anymore.
I’m a good fucking guy and your rat is passed out in his chair. You took a
shower—I didn’t put cameras in your bathroom, I don’t need to see that—and
now you’re in bed reading your Murakami, closing the book, writing in your
journal, going back to your book. You are like my jeans in the washing machine
and you need me to pull you out of that chamber and end this vicious cycle and
you look into the lens and I zoom in and our eyes meet. Fuck it. Tomorrow, I
will ask you to join me in RIP Kurt’s Meadow and tomorrow you will say yes.
23
You are skipping lunch to go to Poulsbo to see the dentist—nice lie, Mary Kay—
and I am on the way to Sawatdy to pick up beef and broccoli. I pull into the
strip mall—even Bainbridge isn’t perfect—and the island is turning against us.
There was a death in the family and the restaurant is closed and I drive to
Sawan but oh that’s right. The family that owns Sawatdy owns Sawan and that’s
the problem with an island. There is no beef, no broccoli, and I can’t get it out
of my fucking head.
I keep picturing you with that rat. You let him rip off your tights. You let
him cum inside of you. But you don’t know that I know about that and good
guys move forward. I won’t let one moment of weakness between you and your
manipulative ball and chain get in the way of our family. I drive to Starbucks. I
buy two lattes, one for you and one for me—Be the change you want to see in the
world—and I blast Sam Cooke. Positive Joe! I drive to the library—remember
when I thought I was moving to a walker’s paradise?—and I barge into the
library with a big fat smile on my face, as if you didn’t permanently ruin Jeff
Fucking Buckley for me.
I knock on your door. You look up and you don’t invite me in. “What’s
wrong?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I did a mobile order and I got two by mistake. You want?”
You gulp. You want. “You should see if Ann wants that. She’s downstairs.”
I smile at you. “By the Red Bed?”
You do not smile at me. Too much. “Joe…”
“Sorry,” I say. “It was just a joke.”
You look so sad, and I bet Layla is on Phil’s side—maybe she’s fucking him
too!—and you are getting it from all angles. Come on, Mary Kay. I know you’re
in hell. Open up to me. Tell me about your no-good, very bad week. Tell me
about Melanda. Tell me about Phil. Tell me about Layla. But you don’t. You just
tell me that you’re so busy right now. Bullshit.
But I remain positive. Rosie Joe the Riveter. “So I might head up to the
meadow and read.” You gulp and that was too much and too little. “Or who
knows? Maybe I’ll finally go check out Fort Ward.”
“You should do that.”
“You wanna join?”
You look at Eddie Vedder and then you look at the clock. “You should head
out early before it gets too dark. And the meadow’s probably a better idea. It’s
closer.”
I inch closer. Closer. “Maybe you should cut out early and hit up the meadow.
I can cover for you if that helps…”
“Joe…” Dot. Dot. Dot. “That sounds nice and I know we…” You can’t even
finish the sentence. You just exhale. “We’ll talk later, okay?”
I catch your eye, which is no easy thing, the way you’re trying so hard to
avoid me. “You know where to find me.”
You nod. “Have a good time up there.”
I walk out of your office and you know where I’m going and it’s my job to go
there. But then I hear laughter in History. The hairs on my neck stand up. It’s
Oliver and he sees me and I see him and he’s talking to a Mothball, as if he’s a
resident, as if he’s allowed to check out books.
The Mothball distracts him—thank you, Mothball—and I get in my car and I
drive to the forest because you said it.
It’s Closer.
I am on foot. Oliver wants an update and I snap a picture of the sign—Barn
or House—and send it to him. Oliver is placated, for now, and I post my Barn or
House photo on Instagram and twenty seconds later there it is.
@LadyMaryKay Likes your photo and she can’t wait to join you in the meadow.
I hike up the hill and I wait for you in the tall grass and the light in the sky
won’t last forever. I hear noises. Humans. I pull on my sweater and no. It isn’t
you. It’s my neighbor and your frenemy Nancy and her entire extended fecal-
eyed family and they brought their large yellow Lab and she’s charging me and I
let her kiss me.
“Flowerbed,” I say. “How you doing, girl?”
Flowerbed slobbers all over me—she knows I’m good—and I let her give me
sloppy kisses. It’s an open display of affection and positive thinking is easier
when there’s a dog wagging its tail for you. I know you’re on your way. You love
me, you do. But then Papa calls—Flowerbed!—and he wants the dog to leave me
and I want you to leave Phil and this whole fucking island is against us.
Flowerbed disobeys—good girl—and she wags her tail even more, smiling at
me, as if she knew I needed a pick-me-up. “Good girl,” I say. “Very good girl.”
But now Master “Papa” Doofus is stomping up to us in his Columbia pullover
and his man-leggings and his Timberlands. He blocks what’s left of the sun and
he doesn’t smile or say he recognizes me from the neighborhood, even though he
fucking does. His fecal-eyed family members are whispering about me, as if it’s
so sad and grotesque to be alone up here. They should do the decent thing and
wave hello, fuck you, and you should do the decent thing and show the fuck up
already. He whistles at Flowerbed and she obeys her doofus master even though
she likes me better, even though she wants a new life with me and possessive,
overbearing men like him and Phil ruin everything.
My phone buzzes. Is it you? No. It’s just another bossy man—fucking Oliver
—and I buy him another present on 1stdibs. It’s been sixty-three minutes since
you liked my photo and the fecal-eyed baby is crying and Nancy is clapping her
hands—Let’s get a move on—and it was bad when they were here but it’s worse
now that they’re packing it in.
My phone buzzes—serotonin surge, is it you?—but it’s just Oliver. I text you
a picture of the meadow—fuck it—and you don’t write back and you’re not
going to write back and I can’t do this anymore, Mary Kay.
I pick up my blanket and walk—it’s just me and the trees—and I stop and
stare at that sign that offers everyone a choice because it is impossible to walk
on two paths at once. Barn. House. I am the barn, the home of all that is natural
and you choose the house, prefab, phony. You’re like Flowerbed, programmed to
obey your “master.” I know it now. And I know what I have to do.
An hour later, I am in my driveway, staring into the trunk of my car.
It’s time for me to run. Your best friend is dead. You fucked your husband. I
talk more to Oliver than I do to you, the woman I love, and I deserve better,
Mary Kay. I don’t want you to be some woman who gets off on being treated
like shit but that’s what you are, and it’s like Dr. Nicky says on his blog, like
Melanda said to you. When people show you who they are, it is your job to pay
attention.
My phone buzzes, but it’s different this time. I don’t get that burst of
serotonin—my brain is too smart—and I trudge back inside for one last bag. I
check my phone and I was right. It’s not you. It’s never going to be you. It’s
Oliver, hitting me up about another “antique” on 1stdibs. I drop my reusable
tote bag on my muddy floor—this is why rich people have mudrooms—and I
bid on taxidermy for Minka, for Oliver and he doesn’t thank me. He just asks if
I ponied up for expedited delivery and sends me a picture from the house on
Rockaway that he moved into—Now THIS is a view Goldberg—and he’s right. You
can see Seattle from Rockaway and I can’t see shit from my house and you love
me but it means nothing if you won’t act on it. I tell Oliver that I’m heading for
Seattle because I’m too creeped out to be in this house and he says to keep my
notifications on and text him my new address when I’m settled.
Fucker.
I fill the food bowls for my kittens—practically cats—and I don’t feel good
about leaving them, but the side door is ajar. They’ll find their way.
I pick up the last box, the one that hurts the most—tights you left in the
trash can at work, a cardigan that carries your scent—and I carry the box
outside. A woman in a Cooley Hardware pullover is walking her dog, glaring at
me without saying hello—oh, Bainbridge, lighten up—and I pop my trunk and
drop the box.
“You’re leaving too?”
I know that voice and I turn around and your Meerkat is in my driveway,
eyeing the box in my trunk and I didn’t seal that box and your tights are right
there—no, no, no—and can she see them?
“Nomi,” I say. “How you doing?”
“So are you moving or what?”
Your teenager is such a child right now, pulling at a cowlick. I close the
trunk. Safer that way. “I’m just going away for a few days. Business trip.”
I sound like a dickhead in a John Cheever short story and she huffs. “Okay
then. Have fun in your brand-new life.”
She turns her back on me and I can’t leave like this, not with her mad, losing
her aunt and the cool guy from the library in the same fucking week, bound to
tell you about what she saw. My plan was to disappear on you, not to crush your
daughter’s spirit and she’s halfway down the driveway and fuck you, Bainbridge,
you fucking fishbowl. “Nomi, hang on a second.”
She turns around. “What?”
“I’m not moving away.”
“It’s a free country. Do what you want. My aunt left. I mean I guess I would
too if I were you guys.” Her aunt tried to kill me but she doesn’t know that. She
kicks a rock. “I just came by to tell you that I went back to the library and
helped more old people. I was gonna write about Dylan for this senior seminar
thing… but now I guess I’ll write about the stupid joys of community service and
old people or whatever. But whatever. I know you don’t care.”
“Hey, come on. Of course I care.”
“Is that why you’re leaving without saying goodbye?”
“I told you. I’m not leaving.”
It’s the truth. I’m not fucking leaving. Not anymore. This is about our family
and Nomi needs me and thank God that Bainbridge is a tiny, nosy rock. Thank
God you live right around the corner. Otherwise, I’d be on the ferry by now. “Do
me a favor, Nomi. Don’t call ’em ‘old’ people.”
“All they do is talk about how young I am so how is that fair?”
“It’s different and you know it.”
“If it’s rude to call someone old then it should be rude to call someone
young.”
“Point taken,” I say, and I was overreacting today, same way she is
overreacting right now. This is how you drive a rat insane. You trap it on an
island, fuck with its head. Nomi and I are in this together and my phone buzzes.
It’s Seamus and that Cooley Hardware handmaid acted fast. He’s blunt: Heard
you’re splitting. Is that for real?
Bainbridge Island: Where Boundaries Go to Die—and Nomi squints. “Who’s
texting you?”
She has no right to ask about my private communication and it’s time to
teach this kid a lesson. “Nomi, don’t take this the wrong way, but there’s this
thing called privacy…” I’m talking to her, but the lecture is for me too. I planted
those cameras in your house and it’s my job to deal with the consequences. “And
privacy is good for us. We all need it.”
“Ah,” she says. “So you’re defending old people because you are an old
person.”
“Believing in privacy doesn’t make me old. It just means I think some stuff is
private.” I hold up my phone. “And if you’re really that curious… It’s just
Seamus.”
She shudders. “Ick. He’s so annoying.”
True. “Oh come on,” I say, emboldened by his outreach, as if he and Nomi
and this whole fucking community are coming through for us, begging me to
stay. “He’s a nice guy.”
She shrugs. “I used to work at his store. But just for a few months.”
The Meerkat waves at Nancy, who is pulling an Athleta catalogue out of her
mailbox.
“See,” Nomi says. “I’m not anti-privacy. But you grew up somewhere where
you can be anonymous. Bainbridge is freaking impossible. You can’t have
privacy here. I mean, you run a stop sign and you don’t get a ticket but someone
sees you run that stop sign and before you know it, your mom’s like I heard you
ran a stop sign and the guy at the T & C winks at you and tells you to drive safe
and you have to drive safe cuz obviously your mom told him to keep an eye on
you. I can’t wait to live in New York, assuming I get into NYU.”
I laugh and this is Cedar Cove and you couldn’t join me in the meadow,
you’re punishing yourself for what you did in the privacy of my home. “I get it,
Nomi. I do.”
She grips the straps of her backpack. “I’m outta here. Have fun with Seamus
but please don’t tell him I said hi. I’m supposed to be at the library and he’ll tell
my mom and…”
I zip my lip and she walks away, happier than she was when she arrived. I
unpack my car and I shoot a video of Riffic and Licious fighting over the
smallest box. I send you the video and you send me a smiley face and that’s all I
need today, Mary Kay. I pick up a tchotchke I lifted from your home. A Phil
Fucking Roth doll. I stuff it with catnip and toss it to the kittens and they go
wild, thrashing, tearing off his limbs.
God, I wish I could kill Phil for you. But no.
I check your Instagram—nothing, you’re in shame mode—and I check the
Meerkat’s. She shared a picture of herself with a few tech-challenged Mothballs
—she didn’t tag me or thank me—but you know who got her in that room. You
gave me chocolate-covered strawberries—and my phone buzzes. Oliver wants an
update and I tell him I was just being a pussy—it’s the truth—and that I’m gonna
stay in the house.
I am a good man, Mary Kay. Good men don’t run away. I’m not an avoidant
wimp who runs out on you to play Xbox. I buy Oliver a present for Minka—a
bottle of fake perfume called Chanel Fucked Up No5 by Axel Crieger—and that
buys me time to fix dinner before your show tonight. I wasn’t crazy about the
first episode—too much graphic nudity and emotional violence—and I know
that you would be devastated and embarrassed by your behavior in that house. I
know you don’t want me to see the ugly part of your home life. But tonight’s
episode will be better. And if not, I’m just the man to retool it.
24
I did it, Mary Kay. I am the mouse in your house and you can’t figure me out.
You keep trying to get my attention. Your rat had a gig on New Year’s Eve but
you stayed home to be with your Meerkat. You sent me glad tidings after
midnight and I responded with a you too and I watched you stare at your phone,
typing and deleting, ultimately tossing the phone on the couch. You’ve also been
angling for my attention in our library. You replenished The Quiet Ones with a
few short story collections and a Richard Russo novel that came and went too
fast, according to you. But I didn’t knock on your door to give you an atta girl. A
day later, you announced that you were walking to Starbucks, an obvious play
to get me to follow, but I stayed right where I was.
You carry the frustration into your home every night—good job, me!—and
you’re going through withdrawal, which means that your show is getting better all
the time. In Episode 3, you were grumpy. You miss me and you can’t have me—ha
—so you were slamming cabinets. Apologizing to the Meerkat, retreating to
your bedroom and avoiding your rat and tonight—Episode 104—you are in full-
on Stepford mode. You don’t sulk and stare at the walls and think about me.
You are in nonstop motion, rifling through the rat’s nightstand and his drawers
because you live in fear of him falling off the wagon and you think he’s hiding
heroin in his guitar case, in the bottom of his amp.
He isn’t hiding drugs, which means you’re not finding drugs and you want to
find drugs because that would make it easier for you to force him to check into
rehab, which would pave the way for the two of you to split up. It wouldn’t be
about the drugs. It would be about the lying.
So now I’m off-island at a bar in Poulsbo called Good Old Daze, which is
poppin’ as bars like this are on Thirsty Fucking Thursday. It’s easy to spot
Aaron the drug dealer (a.k.a. Ajax. A.k.a. not all kids who grow up on
Bainbridge turn out to be angels). I read about him on the Bainbridge Island
Community Facebook page. People blame Ajax for the untimely death of a guy
named Davey and Ajax holds court at a table in the back with an overall lack of
shame about his purpose here. He wears a brown leather jacket that screams
1987 and Bruce Springsteen wails about hungry hearts and the barmaid pours
stiff drinks in dirty glasses. I met Seamus for a beer at Isla and pretended to get
a booty call and sneak out the back so Oliver won’t see—the work I do for you,
Mary Kay—and then I drove into Poulsbo.
I order a shot of Jack and make my way to Ajax, who mad-dogs me when I
stand there at his table. Shaking. “What of it?” he says.
“I heard… Are you Ajax?”
Ajax scans the bar to make sure this isn’t a sting and I tell him I knew Rudy
—thanks to Facebook, I know all about RIP Davey’s bad-influence buddy Rudy
—and before you know it, I have a seat at the unsteady table with Ajax. A
couple quick exchanges about the shitty scene at the bar—Ajax was hoping to
get laid tonight—and then we’re in the bathroom and just like that, I am the
proud owner of ten highly toxic, no-good little M30s.
It’s bone chilling, Mary Kay. A man is dead because of these poison pills and
Ajax doesn’t warn me about the fentanyl. He really doesn’t care about me or the
dead guy but then, that’s the world, isn’t it? The fecal-eyed family doesn’t care
about me either and this is why we need to find our tribe and take care of each
other.
He tells me I can go now, and so I do, out the back door, into the rain, past a
girl sucking a guy’s dick in a Honda, past a woman crying in her car—Bell Bottom
Blues, you made me cry—and into my car. I’m shaking for real now. It’s scary to be
in possession of all these fatal little pills and Ajax’s paranoia is infectious. I
adjust the rearview and turn on the interior light and I put the fucking pills in
the trunk.
I know it’s irrational, but I don’t want to die from M30 fumes.
It’s a straight shot home once I hit the 305 and I play Simon & Garfunkel to
wash the Good Old Daze out of my brain but I drive too fast or too slow. I can’t
stop checking the rearview. It’s really raining tonight, not drizzling, and Shortus
is going home—You were luckier than I was tonight—and my wipers aren’t
working quite right. It’s a two-lane road, always quiet and dark at night—it’s
fucking Bainbridge—and I tell myself that the set of headlights a few car lengths
back is nothing to worry about because this is the way to the ferry. I turn up the
volume and focus on bridges over troubled waters but my heart is beating fast.
Can you catch fentanyl by touching a tainted plastic bag? Am I ill?
Home at last and sweaty as fuck—I shouldn’t have worn your favorite
sweater—and I walk into my house and I call out to my cats but my cats aren’t
dogs. They don’t come when called. I grab some paper towels and head back
outside. I stare at my car, my car full of poison. I don’t want an accidental
contact high and I sure as hell don’t want anything to happen to my cats. I pop
my trunk and the paper towels aren’t plastic, but at least they’ll provide some
boundary between my skin and the fentanyl.
I fold four paper towels and pick up the bag of death and my heart thumps
faster—is fentanyl airborne?—and I walk back to my house. And then I hear the
sound of my guitar. I clench the paper towels.
Oliver.
“In here,” he says.
I walk around the corner, down into my sunken living room, and there he is,
on my couch, strumming my Gibson. Chills. Flashbacks. All of it. “Did you have
a good night, my friend?”
“It was okay.”
He’s tuning the guitar again and he’s pure Angeleno. He’s not a great writer.
And he’s not a great private detective and he probably put his detective hat on
tonight because he hit a snag in the spec script he’s no doubt writing in his
downtime.
He eyes the wad of paper towels. “What’s that, Goldberg?”
“What’s up, Oliver? Did my bid on the Frank Stella not go through?”
I dump the paper towels in the trash bin—I pray my cats don’t find a way in
—and he tosses my guitar on the floor and man-spreads on my sofa in the spot
where you sat.
“I saw you in Poulsbo,” he says. “And needless to say, I am not pleased, my
friend.”
Of course he followed me. Of course tonight had to be the night that he
threw himself into his work. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He just shakes his head. “Don’t mess with me, Goldberg. We had a deal. You
stay outta trouble. And that means you stay clean. Away from trash like Ajax.
In some fucked-up way I forgot that he is what he is, a private fucking
detective, a dancer for money. But that’s not my fault. It’s easy to forget the origin
of our relationship because most of the time he’s just on me about art. I flop
into a chair. “Oliver, I’m telling you. It’s not what you think.”
“Oh, so I suppose you got the pills for a ‘friend’?”
Yes. “No. Look, I heard a rumor that bad stuff was going around… I just
wanted to get it off the streets so some kid doesn’t OD again.”
“Saint Joe of the Stockyards.”
“I’m not calling myself a saint…”
But it’s true, Mary Kay. I did save a life tonight, maybe more than one. Oliver
lectures me about the danger of drugs and people who deal in narcotics as if he’s
my tenth-grade guidance counselor and he won’t let me keep my stash. He
forces me to fish the bag out of the garbage and he reminds me that he’s
watching. Always. And then he sends me a link to a fucking David LaChapelle
photograph of Whitney Houston called Closed Eyes and this is the first item that
doesn’t show the cost. Price upon request. And I should be buying this for you not
for Minka but really I should be buying it for no one because no one needs to
own this fucking photograph.
Riffic trots into the room and hisses at him. Good cat. “Sorry,” I say. “But
Oliver, this is getting out of control. I buy you every little ‘antique’ you want
and you break into my house because I go for a ride?”
It’s like a bolt of lightning hits and Oliver the artistic and Oliver the
detective become one. “You seem to forget that I have video of you holding a
dead body, my friend.”
I DID NOT KILL HER. “I didn’t forget. But you said we were in this
together.”
“Joe,” he says. “I’m a little disappointed in you. I thought you were smarter
than that…”
FUCK YOU, OLIVER. “I have you on a loose leash because when people feel
free… when they feel relaxed… they fuck up. And now I know what you’re up to
—and now you know that you can’t go out and cop a score. It’s not just about
your health. We are in this together, my friend, and if you blow your money
getting high… that’s no good for my art fund, is it?”
The pills weren’t for me and Oliver is never going to believe me and I
contact the seller and request the fucking price of Closed Eyes and now I have to
wait for an answer and Oliver is watching me, Mary Kay. He really is. More
than I knew. The worst and most dangerous eyes in this world are the private
ones and I could stand up and knock him out and end his life but then his
brother would end my life.
“Well,” he says. “They hit you back yet? What’s Whitney gonna cost us?”
By us he means me and I dream of my sunken living room imploding, pulling
him into a sinkhole, but like my plan of Phil testing the waters with M30s, it’s
not gonna happen. I refresh the 1stdibs app and think of what Dr. Nicky would
say right now. Something trite but true. Everything happens for a reason. I am a
good guy and good guys find the bright side—it’s like that Stephen King quote
on the sign by the gas station near (RIP) Beck Road—It was the possibility of
darkness that made the day seem so bright.
Maybe that’s true. Maybe the universe sent Oliver into my life to teach me a
lesson. He picks up Licious and Licious doesn’t fight him and you were right,
Mary Kay. Licious is a stupid fucking name. “Well?” he says. “Any word yet?”
“The guy says he’ll get back to me tomorrow.”
He takes a selfie with my cat and sends it to Minka. Ugh.
Oliver is an asshole, yes, but he’s trying to make his girlfriend happy by
fixing up her home. My heart races in the good way. Not paranoid about
fentanyl in the air. (I googled. I’m fine.) I have to be like Oliver.
When he leaves, I bring my kitten-cats into my bedroom and give them a
loose roll of toilet paper. They play on my bed—so fucking cute—and I send a
video to you with a simple, honest Guess I have to get more toilet paper. You like
the video and send me a smile and now you’ve seen my bed. We need these
moments because you maintain your distance at the library—I get it—but I
won’t let you forget that you love me. I exist.
I hightail it down to my Whisper Room to watch you. You’re in bed next to
your rat—he’s only taping his shit show three nights right now and he doesn’t go
downstairs until Nomi is asleep—and you’re eating tortilla chips out of the bag
—yes!—and he pokes you. “Do you have to be so loud, Emmy?”
You shove chips in your mouth. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.
Your rat rolls over and you pick up your phone and scroll and then my
phone pings.
@LadyMaryKay Likes your photo.
You fucked up. The picture is old. You unlike it and hang your head and
Stephen King is the Master of Darkness but I am the master of your darkness. I
turned off the lights inside of you and your rat reaches for your body and you
swat him away. No more breakup sex. No more makeup sex. You don’t want
him. You want me.
25
We’re making so much progress, Mary Kay. Oliver got invited to an extended
bachelor party in Vegas. It’s one of his best friends from home and he whined
about FOMO and I stole a page from RIP Melanda’s playbook and worked him
over with reverse psychology.
Sucks you can’t go. That’s life being a Quinn bitch.
Poor Boys Club rules: Gambling is for trust fund kids who don’t know the value of
money.
Imagine Ray’s face if he found out you left me here on my own. Not that I’d ever tell
him but man. He would SNAP.
So of course, Oliver is in Vegas to prove he’s not a Quinn bitch and we’re in
this “together.”
I promised to be good and I’m a man of my word, Mary Kay. You’ve been
going to couples therapy somewhat religiously twice a week for two weeks and
your shrink, Layla, should be disbarred. She’s oblivious to the pain you’re hiding.
And she leaves the window of her office open as if there isn’t an alley right by
the building that’s a fucking echo chamber.
I’d expect more from an MSW who lives in a semi-city, but at some point in
life, I’ll learn to expect less.
Layla advises you and your rat to “fill the well” and “nest” and I know what
she means—talk, bond, fuck—but you don’t want to talk to him. You don’t want
to have sex with him. You just want to buy a whole bunch of new fucking
furniture. You loved “nesting” when you were preparing for Nomi to arrive and
you’re extrapolating like crazy, claiming that you and Phil nest well together. Your
therapist thinks this is positive teamwork—such an idiot—and Phil made his
feelings about material things clear a hundred years ago when he lambasted you
in song about a crate in a barrel, a barrel in a gun, remember the summer, the end of
all your fun. (Repeat 10X.) The trouble is, he doesn’t want to lose you, so he sits in
the therapeutic box nodding as you wax on about “the symbolic value” of buying
a new dresser like the heartless slab of phony baloney that he is.
“Whatever it takes, Emmy. Anything for us.”
So you bought a brand-new blue dresser and it wasn’t made in America—
Nice job, China!—it doesn’t have cedar linings or metal undermount drawer
glides. It weighs less than two hundred pounds and the “wood” is manufactured.
They take real wood and disintegrate it and then mash it back together with
artificial additives. Like your marriage, it’s not real. It arrived a week ago and
your cheap lazy husband wouldn’t spring for the white glove delivery and
assembly. So it waits for you, for him, in two giant boxes of unassembled slabs
of fake wood on your back deck, where all the passing hikers and tourists can
see it sit there festering, growing moldy. Dank.
Symbolism, much?
I watch from the Whisper Room as you stare at those wilting boxes. Phil’s
around more these days because of “therapy” and you nag him about the dresser.
He’s avoidant—Just ask your buddy Seamus, he gets off on that kinda crap—and he
tells you he’s too worked up from an NA meeting.
Part of “working on your marriage” means focusing on your past. The rat
won’t go to the meadow with you and he won’t hike up to the bunkers at Fort
Ward—you know I have lower back issues, Emmy, and I can’t take a pain pill,
obviously—so you’ve resorted to other shit. Sadder shit. You’re hosting a Reality
Bites #TBT screening for couples in the library’s garden. (Gross. Sad. Just no.) All
you need him to do is agree to show up and yet he grouses—Aw man, are you
trying to put me in an early grave?—and you counter—It’s just one night—but he
wants to go out that night because the boys are back in town. He picks up his pen
That’s a good line, I gotta write that down—and he puts down his pen—it’s
someone else’s good line, you moron.
Nomi stomps downstairs. She can’t concentrate with all this bickering—
Don’t worry, kid, the Edward Albee shit ends soon—and you lower your voice
to a hiss—I need you to grow up, Phil—and he tells you to chill out, Emmy. Don’t
take out your Melanda shit on me. I’m not your whipping post.
I clap my hands. You tell her, Phil! You steal from those Allman Brothers
and drive her right into my arms!
You groan, you tell him that he’s the one who needs to grow up. He can’t
choose his boys and some band at the Tractor over you and your work. He huffs
that the bands are playing new songs and you’re playing old movies and he snaps his
fingers—That’s a song—and he picks up his Gibson and he’s strumming and you
miss me. Your cell phone rings and you want it to be me but it’s Shortus and
Phil stops singing to give orders—Please tell me that asshat’s not coming over,
Emmy, I can’t listen to him go on about CrossFit—and you are an obedient child
bride. You send Shortus to voicemail, which means that he texts me.
Shortus: Isla later?
Me: Sure!
See, Mary Kay. Unlike your rat husband, I have empathy for single dudes
who may not have the most scintillating personalities. I know it’s hard to be
alone, so I’ll suck it up and have a beer with Shortus because I feel for him. It
was Friends when RIP Melanda was around. It was okay for the three of you to
be together, waxing nostalgic at the diner, always “popping by,” but two is not
three. And now that she’s gone, you ice out Shortus.
Phil resumes playing his nonsong and you pour wine—Did you fix the stove?—
and Phil is a child—Right after I finish this song.
You hate your life and you plod upstairs to your bedroom. It’s a minefield.
Your old dresser is in the front yard—what must your cul-de-sac neighbors
think?—and your sweaters and your tights are mixed up with his clothes in big
black trash bags. You can’t deal with those fucking trash bags and you close your
door and climb onto your bed. You read your favorite parts of Murakami—all
but sucked inside—and you look at my Instagram—I can’t see but I know—and
then you put on a silk sleep mask. Your hand delves into your Murakami and
you tap your Lemonhead and I’m not a pervert but this sex fast isn’t easy.
You climax. I climax. For now, this is good enough because it has to be.
The next day when I get to your house, I climb onto your side of the
marriage bed and I put on your sleep mask and I imagine you here and when I
finish I’m dizzy. I smack my knee into your end table—Fuck!—and I rummage in
a trash bag for your tights but I wind up with his shit-stained man-panties
Double Fuck—and I rush into your bathroom to wash my hands.
I’m getting tired of this shit and I dry my hands on a plush new hand towel—
you are trying so hard—and I check your Instagram and it’s all #TBT of you and
your rat. Your nostalgia is misguided, you should be looking toward the future
—me—but here you are, circa the late nineties hanging all over your man.
Instead of being sad about Melanda and the state of your life, you are snarky.
You take a picture of yourself in your puffy nineties prom dress.
This is okay to wear to work, right? #RealityBites screening tomorrow night! See you
crazy kids there! #DateNight
You really do need to get some boundaries, Mary Kay. This is your personal
page and public library events have no place here. We need boundaries, both of
us. My alarm on my phone goes off—it’s almost 1:45—and it’s time to get to
work. The work I’m doing now is not unlike my work at the library—nobody is
paying me to do this—but the feeling I get from helping you is payment enough.
I open my notepad.
DIMARCO HOME RENOVATIONS: DAY EIGHT
-Pour Phil’s almond milk down drain, return empty carton to refrigerator.
-Delete Monterey Pop from DVR.
-Loosen screws in the leaf of dining room table.
-Jack up heat on thermostat.
-Disable Phil’s bullshit fix on the stove.
-Move charcoal to deck so it gets rained on.
-Hide the coasters.
-Turn on all the TVs. High volume. VH1.
Yes, I’m your handyman—you’re welcome—and you don’t know that I’m the
prop master, staging things to advance the plot so that you blame each other
when things go awry, when you come home to a hot house and he swears he
turned down the heat before he left. I like the way he flies into an indignant
rage, accuses you of being crazy. I hate the way you recover—I know I’m moody,
I’m still in shock over Melanda—but soon you will jump off the building, away
from your forty-five-year-old man baby. And he is a baby. Of all my tricks, it’s
the milk that drives him to slam cabinets and rail on about his vocal cords, your
selfishness—It’s not like I ask for a lot from you, Emmy. Jesus Christ. I need my
almond milk!
I finish my projects and I get home and I fix dinner—old pizza from Bene—
and I head down to the Whisper Room and turn on my TV to settle in for my
favorite sitcom: You. Things are especially ugly in your house tonight. I signed
you up for Pottery Barn catalogues, Restoration Hardware, and of course, Crate
& Barrel. The rat is on a tear—What is this shit?—and you can’t find your favorite
sweater in your trash bags—I moved all your things around—and you want him
to assemble that dresser now but he can’t because he threw his back out at the
Guitar Store—ha! Thanks for playing, Phil—and he can’t take a pain pill, he
won’t take a pain pill—right on, brother!—and Nomi is fed up—I can’t wait to get
out of here—and congratulations, Mary Kay. You’re in the twenty-years-later
sequel to Reality Bites and there’s a reason why that movie doesn’t fucking exist.
In real life, Troy and Lelaina split up three months later and Lelaina realizes
that Ben Stiller actually loved her but Troy only wanted to control her.
Right now, your poor man’s Troy Dyer picks up his Gibson and you grab it
out of his hands and is this it? Are you gonna ask him for a divorce? You sigh. “I
don’t want to fight with you.”
He reclaims his guitar and strums. “Then don’t.”
You stare at his Michelob Light. It’s not on a coaster because I hid your
coasters. You walk into the kitchen and tear a paper towel off the roll, you pick
up his beer to move it onto your makeshift coaster, and he kisses the back of
your hand—Sorry—and you rub the top of his head—Me too—and I scream at my
TV—NO!
For a little while you coexist, living your separate lives, but then you try to
start dinner. You turn on the stove but nothing happens.
“Phil!”
“Writing!”
“The stove’s out again.”
“Nope, fixed it, Emmy.”
He did, but I unfixed it today and this is the final act where it all comes
together because the pot isn’t boiling, you can’t cook, and now he’s playing the
almond milk card—Good boy, Phil—and he shoves a Pottery Barn catalogue in
the trash and you grab your phone. Do it, Mary Kay. Lawyer up!
“What are you doing, Em?”
“I’m gonna find someone on Craigslist to assemble the dresser.”
“Oh, come on. I dig the trash bags, it’s like the good old days.”
You groan—kick him out—and you collapse onto your old blue sofa. Did you
finally give up? Do you finally see what needs to happen?
“Okay,” you say. “Should we just order Sawadty? I’m exhausted anyway.”
You can order all the beef and broccoli in the world but it won’t satisfy your
desire to eat beef and broccoli with me and Phil is fine with Thai, fine with
anything, and you lecture him like he’s your indolent teenage son—We do have to
finish the house before Nomi graduates—and he huffs—It’s only March, I’ll stick the
boxes in the garage—and you are calm—We have a hundred people coming to this
house—and he is a child—To hang out in the backyard, Em, in two months. Relax.
No one likes being told to relax and you harangue him about the minefield in
the bedroom. He snickers—The party’s not in the bedroom, Em—and grabs his
guitar—That’s a good line. That’s gold. He buries his head in his music—I’ll take
care of the dresser tomorrow—and you pour more wine—I’ll hold you to it. But you
won’t hold him to it, Mary Kay. You never fucking do. You go upstairs and
masturbate and I shut off this bad TV show: frumpy husband and foxy wife, how
original! I don’t have it in me to jerk off. Not tonight.
I have to work harder.
Oliver bugs me for an update—he’s easier to deal with when he’s out of town
—and I tell him I’m at home—the truth—and I don’t bitch at him for stealing
my M30s because Ajax sold me some heroin and sadly, we’re gonna have to use
it now.
I am back in your house less than twelve hours later and I am retracing your
footsteps. You’re always sniffing around his nightstand because you are Married,
Worried. I plant a baggie of horse in the copy of Catcher in the Rye that he keeps
in his nightstand. There’s a sticker on the cover—PROPERTY OF BAINBRIDGE
PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL—and oh Phil, grow up. I cross the room and slip another
bag under an amp—who keeps an amp in the bedroom?—and then I walk over
to your nightstand. This is where you keep a little book that I can only presume
must be your diary. I know I shouldn’t read it. But we’re in a rut so I open your
drawer and I pick up your diary. The first few pages are to-do lists—almond
milk, sell dresser, find one that comes assembled—and you are a fox. Sneaky. The
good stuff is in the back.
The dresser, the damn dresser. It’s like a box of Joe and it’s like he’s on my porch in
those goddamn boxes and what am I doing? I am punishing Phil because I want to be
with Joe and I can’t be mad about Phil about Melanda because come on. I knew. And in
some sick way I felt good letting it go on because we all know that I really did steal him
and maybe I hoped he would leave me for her? But he didn’t and now he’s never leaving
and I can’t leave but what about ME? When do I get to be happy? God I miss Joe. But is
that only because I want what I can’t have? Joe in the bunkers at Fort Ward. Joe in the
meadow. Joe Joe NO AHAHAHAHAHAH
The danger of a good book is that it swallows you whole and animals in the
wild don’t read because if you get lost in a book, you lose sight of your
surroundings. You don’t hear the predator. For all of Phil’s laziness, the fucker
did do one thing you asked him to do last night. He sprayed WD-40 on your
sliding glass door. And I couldn’t reverse that fix. That’s why I didn’t hear the
door open.
But now I hear the footsteps above all the TVs. Someone is here, inside this
house.
The floorboards on the stairs whinny beneath feet. “Dad? Is that you?”
It’s your daughter. It’s Nomi, the Meerkat.
26
When I was a kid, my mother didn’t read to me. She was always groggy, tired. I
work a double and I get home and now you want me to read to you? No one was going
to read to me so I learned to read to me. You can do that, you can read the story
out loud and if the story is good enough, you transcend the limits of your ego.
You split. You become the reader and the listener, the child and the adult. You
beat the system. You beat your doom. Reading saved my life when I was a
sweaty little kid and it saves my life again today because I always carry a book.
I’m carrying one right now: Robert McCammon’s The Listener. You gave it to me
last week, Mary Kay, and come on, book, work your magic and save my life
because Nomi is at the bottom of the stairs clutching her chest.
“You scared the living shit out of me!”
“You scared me too, Nomi.”
She grips the banister. “What are you even doing here?”
I walk, one step at a time. “Your mom gave me this book and I was bringing
it back. I thought someone was home… Do you guys always leave so many TVs
on?”
She sighs, the fear in her voice waning. “That’s my dad. And they wonder
why I always have my headphones on.”
I reach the bottom of the steps. “I’m sorry I scared you…”
She shrugs. “I thought it was just Seamus,” she says and oh that’s right, that
fucker is like your handyman and she really isn’t scared, not anymore. She
yawns. “Can we go outside? It’s such a relief when I have the place to myself.”
I open the sliding glass door and it glides—Damn you, Phil—and Nomi and I
sit at the table on your deck. It’s my first time hanging out here like one of your
Friends and Nomi picks up my book. “So why didn’t you just bring this back to
the library?”
I won’t let her ask the questions and I smile. “So you’re home early, yeah?”
I caught her good—ha!—and she begs me not to tell her parents—I won’t.
My phone buzzes and she yawns. “Who’s that?”
Oliver. “An old friend from home…”
Oliver found a $35,000 bedazzled horse at some gallery in a casino and I tell
him it’s tacky and he tells me to fuck off and then he fires back.
Oliver: Being good?
Me: Yes. And you do NOT buy art in Vegas, Oliver. Rookie move.
I look at the Meerkat. Her eyes are glazed and she’s puckering her lips and
wait. Is she stoned right now? Well, that means she won’t tell you about our
little run-in.
“Nomi, I’m not a narc but I do have to ask… are you high?”
“A narc? Are you high?”
She laughs and pulls a bong out of her bag. “It’s legal,” she snaps. She barely
knows how to work the thing and her lighter is almost dead and she’s awkward.
Uncoordinated. She coughs. “They say this stuff makes you paranoid. But I was
born paranoid. Maybe it will make me normal.”
She shows me the “new” book she’s reading—a reissued copy of In Cold Blood
and it pains me to see a young woman filling her mind with more darkness,
but at least it’s not Columbine and I smile. “So, then I assume this means you’re
all done with Dylan Klebold?”
She bangs her bong on the table. “I told you I just like his poems. A lot of
good writers are nutjobs.” She coughs and I hope she doesn’t overdose and she
asks me if I live alone—with all those cats—and I nod and she coughs through a
sigh. “I could never. I would be so paranoid. I would go nuts. And cats can’t even
protect you.”
I won’t be insulted. Of course she has issues. Her father is a playboy and her
parents aren’t in love. “It’s not so bad. You get used to it, Nomi. Cats are good
company.”
She shrugs. “I always told Melanda that she should get a cat.” Wrong. She
couldn’t keep that condo clean as it was. “I think she went nuts from being
alone so much.” Well, that’s closer to the truth. “It’s cool to be alone in a city or
whatever, but here? No offense.”
“None taken,” I say, and I have to remember that this is a child. A minor. A
shit ton of perfectly well-adjusted people live alone, they don’t pair off, but still
the family people act like there’s something wrong with us. “So,” I say. “Melanda
moved?”
She smiles at me in a way that reminds me that she came from inside of you.
Her grin is pure Alanis Morissette, a little too knowing. “Yeah,” she says. “Maybe
she took off cuz she was pissed when I told her how much I loved that movie
you told me about.”
I am the adult. The authority figure. “That’s crazy, Nomi. Don’t blame
yourself. Not for one second.”
She’s a kid again, scratching her messy hair. “Yeah, she probably just got sick
of my parents. They’re so annoying.” I can’t agree with her so I don’t respond
but I can’t imagine living in that house either. “Did you know her?” she asks.
“Did you know Melanda?”
I don’t like the question and I might be getting a contact high. Paranoid. I
steer us back to the safe water, after-school-special seas. “Nomi, your parents
aren’t annoying. All parents are annoying. That’s biological design. Otherwise
no one would ever want to leave the nest.”
She takes off her glasses and wipes them with a napkin. “I can’t wait to get
out of here. My parents… they act like everything since high school blows, like
they’d get in a time machine if they could. It’s so sad. I mean life is all about
what’s next, you know?”
I wish you were more like your daughter, Mary Kay, but it can’t be me and
Nomi talking shit about you, so I defend you and your low-grade nostalgic
depressive fever. I remind Nomi that we grew up in a different time, before cell
phones and Instagram. “Your mom’s not living in the past, people our age just
miss the way things used to be.”
She huffs. “Well excuuuuuse me.
“No, Nomi, I’m not saying we were better than you. I’m just saying we were
better off.”
“Totally disagree.”
I want your fucking Meerkat to listen and I snap my fingers. “Think of a
meerkat.”
“Okay…”
“A meerkat in the wild is just living her meerkat life. But a meerkat in a cage,
well she needs people to feed her. She tries to do meerkat things but she doesn’t
have the space. And let’s face it. She wants people to look at her because she
learns that’s the only way she gets to eat.”
Your Meerkat gives me a huh—she’s thinking about my metaphorical
meerkat—but maybe not, because now she’s staring at me again. Alanis eyes.
Piercing. “You want to know something sick?”
No. This is one step too far and I steal your words—“I should probably get
going…”—but she leans in like the little meerkat that she is. “My mom is so
paranoid about my dad that she put cameras all over the house.” All my blood
stops midflow. She knows. She knows. Do you know? “So yeah, I think she kind
of likes capturing the moment.”
I put my hand on The Listener and I will McCammon’s strength to funnel into
my veins. I will not turn red. I will not cave in to paranoia. “Wow. How do you
know?”
She rocks back and forth in her chair. “Well I don’t know. It’s just a vibe.”
Thank Christ, and I pick up her bong. “The rumors are true, Nomi. This
really can make you paranoid. Once I got so high that I thought there was an
earthquake in New York. I called 911.”
She’s a Listener and she’s backtracking, doubting herself. “Yeah, I guess you’re
right. And my mom is so bad at technology, she wouldn’t know how to work
cameras.”
We’re in the clear—I think—and I take a deep time-to-go breath but she
pulls her knees to her chest and keeps talking. “You know my parents started
going out in high school? Can you imagine?”
I can’t leave, not when she goes there. “I didn’t know that.”
“Everyone thinks it’s so romantic. They have this Nirvana ticket stub framed
and she swears she remembers the night and I’m like do you even? Or do you
just stare at that ticket stub so much that you think you remember it? She acts
like her life is so good, like that’s how it works, like posting the ticket stub every
year isn’t pathetic. She’s like ‘Do you have a crush on anyone at school?’ and it’s
like ‘No, Mom. Boys my age are stupid. Do you think that means I’m gonna die
alone?’ But then I’m like, whatever… I don’t like the guys and they don’t like me.
I mean Dylan Klebold was like… bad…”
“Yes.”
“But it was kinda like mistaken identity…”
No. And I hate drugs. I do. “Okay, Nomi, but—”
“See if I had been that girl, that girl he was in love with, I mean I would have
gone up to him and like… who knows? Eric would have bugged him to help with
his psycho mission but Dylan woulda been like no… I’m good. I mean nobody
had to die, you know? Like… that girl… she could have saved him.”
That’s a fantasy of a child who thinks that love can cure anything, even
mental illness, and I relate on some level. I tried to save Borderline Beck and my
parents were like Nomi’s parents—minus the nostalgia—but there is nothing for
me to say to fix the damage that Phil has done to this child. You’re complicit,
Mary Kay. She’s a soulful kid, an artist without a medium, and for all your Nomi
needs me you don’t seem to be getting into it with her and does she fucking
know about my cameras?
She yawns. “Sorry,” she says. “This is why I can’t smoke pot. I get stupid.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Nomi. Don’t ever be sorry for talking.”
She squints, a Meerkat again, a child full of doubt, wonder. “Do you know
my aunt Melanda?” she asks again.
She committed suicide in my basement and I nod. “Not so well. I heard she
moved.”
“Well, do you know why?”
Because she thought she’d never find true love and she realized she’s not
Carly Simon. “I think it was something about a job.”
The Meerkat fights a smile. “That’s what she said, but everyone at school says
she was… you know… doing this freshman kid and the parents didn’t want to
press charges so they were like, leave. This kid in my orgo class says he saw her
sticking something in his butt on this trail where we went to release salmon eggs
when we were little. I mean I believe it. And my mom’s not speaking to her and
she was always in my face about stuff but now she’s like… silent. I bet it’s true.”
“What does your mom say?”
“She says I can’t believe everything I hear but I mean I’d go crazy if I was her
age alone here too. No offense…”
“None taken.”
I tell the Meerkat I have to go and she says to wave goodbye to the cameras—
chills—and I am offended, Mary Kay, but not in the way you might think. The
Meerkat is high, pretending to be so cavalier about her aunt disappearing, but
beneath that adolescent bravado, your daughter is in pain. RIP Melanda wasn’t
perfect, but she was Nomi’s fucking aunt and she was a regular in your home.
The Meerkat misses her aunt and she wants to believe the bullshit story about
the freshman because it’s easier than thinking that one of the only people on
this planet who cares about her just walked out of her life. That would be like if
Mr. Mooney had shut down the bookstore on me and skipped town without a
word and you just can’t fucking do that to a child. I would have gone nuts if I
had lost the only mentor in my life and don’t you see, Mary Kay? Phil isn’t just
bad for you. He’s bad for everyone. Because of him, Melanda is dead to you—not
to mention dead in real life—and you have to cover for her. You have to
encourage Nomi to believe an outright lie because you’re a good mother and
you’ve wondered what’s worse: your daughter knowing that your husband
fucked your best friend or your daughter thinking Melanda was a sexually
deviant spinster child molester.
I get it. You don’t want Nomi to despise her father and I know you can’t tell
Nomi what Melanda did to you, what she did with Phil, but Nomi is in pain.
You’re in pain. You women suffer while he tries out guitars, man, and enough is
enough.
It’s time for reality to take a bite out of Phil but then I hear the Meerkat in
my mind—Wave goodbye to the cameras, Joe—and I hope reality doesn’t bite me
first.
27
It’s 12:36 P.M. and I’m at Starbucks and it’s one of the stranger things about this
island. You’d think people would look down on corporate coffee but it’s always
packed in here and that knit cap fucker from the ferry is blocking the mobile
order pickup spot with his stroller and what can I say? I’m in a mood. Oliver’s
back—four tables away, as if all that trust we built is gone—and my favorite
hate-watch TV show is getting canceled—thanks, Nomi—and people get
grumpy when they lose their binge shows. I push the knit cap dullard’s empty
stroller and he glares at me as if his unremarkable lesser Forty is in the fucking
stroller.
“Sorry,” I say. “Just trying to get my coffee.”
He looks through me, Seattle freeze style, and I grab my latte and I really am
trying, Mary Kay. I wait outside and sure enough, Oliver is out the door.
“You seem a little moody, my friend. Do I have to worry about you
snapping?”
“Oliver, no one likes to be stalked.”
“I dunno about that,” he says. “Minka got two thousand more followers after
this bikini shoot and when those pervs DM her about coming to get her… that
shit makes her happy.”
I laugh and fake a sneeze. “Oh right,” I say. “Seth MacFarlane follows her,
doesn’t he?”
I don’t know if Mr. Fucking Family Guy “follows” Minka, but it doesn’t
matter. Seth MacFarlane has the career that Oliver wanted, so Oliver is backing
away, muttering about emails that need sending when we all know he’s going to
take a nice, deep, time-sucking dive into Minka’s verified followers.
He waves at me. “Have fun with your cats, my friend. Stay safe.”
He’s starting his car and opening Instagram—I knew it—and thank God for
that because I do need my space. I’ve been trying to make things better for us
but your daughter is a paranoid truancy case and I don’t have a choice, do I? I
have to scale back my renovations on your home as if she issued a STOP
WORK order via some state compliance agency. I studied the footage all night
in the Whisper Room and Nomi never once looked directly at the cameras, so I
do think we’re safe. I don’t think she actually knows about them. But Shel
Silverstein’s Whatifs are upon me and they will not be ignored.
Nomi’s at school and you and Phil are with Layla—sorry to miss out on our
therapy, but my car needs to stay in the driveway in case Nurse Oliver pops. I
slink out the back door of my house, into the woods. I make it to your house—
thank you, woods, for the camouflage—and I walk into your house and I put my
coffee on the counter. I go room to room and I remove every one of my high-def
cameras and it’s not fair. Even with this kind of access, you shut me out. I didn’t
know about your little talk with Nomi about Melanda because that must have
happened in your car or at the library and now how am I supposed to keep up
with you fucking DiMarcos?
I’ve got all my cameras in a reusable tote bag and I leave the way I came in
and I won’t be like Phil and allow myself to turn blue on you. I’ve always been
good at lifting myself out of the muck. Okay, so the TV show is over but you
know what? I was getting a little sick of watching the three of you anyway. Last
night it was more of the same and I can remember it word for word as I walk on
the trail by the sea.
You swore you’d get almond milk, Emmy.
You swore you’d assemble that dresser.
Well I would if the Allen wrench was where you said it was.
Are you calling me crazy?
Am I that stupid? Hell, no, Miss Perfect. I know I can’t call a woman crazy.
You know what, Phil? Maybe this hiatus is bad. Maybe you should go back to your
damn show because your moods are out of control.
Well, maybe I wouldn’t be in a mood if there was some coffee in this house.
I bought coffee. I told you it’s in the freezer.
Emmy, I’ve been in the freezer. There isn’t any coffee.
Coffee. My coffee. I drop my tote bag and the cameras fall out and oh heck it’s
up to my neck and I shove the fucking cameras into the fucking bag and I am
backtracking, running faster than I did in New York, faster than I did in Little
Compton and this isn’t happening but this is happening and it’s not as bad as
the mug of piss. It’s worse. It’s a paper cup of coffee with my name on the label
and it’s on your kitchen counter and this trail is fighting me every step of the
way, roots and other joggers—get out of my fucking way—and this is why all
you people drink your coffee out of travel mugs because my name is on that cup.
My name.
It’s a common name but there’s no Joe in your house and now I’m in your
house and the cup of coffee is a mug of piss, the one that nearly ruined my life. I
grab it—yes—but no because the front door just opened and it’s you. It’s him. I
can’t open the slider and I slip into your guest bathroom and there’s no shower
in here and there’s no window and I can’t turn on the light because what if
there’s a fan?
I close the bathroom door—was it open when you left the house?—and what
if you have to pee and is this how it ends? Because we’re all slaves to caffeine?
“Well,” you say to him, not to me, and you should be at work. “Should we do
it?”
Oh no. This is not a time for you to get Closer. Not while I’m so close. He
mumbles and you open a drawer and you riffle with your hands and every sound
is an engine in my head.
“Okay,” you say. “So the contract. I promise to stop nagging you about stupid
stuff.”
“Stupid stuff,” he says. “Can we get a little definition here?”
“Christ, Phil, don’t nitpick already. We have to start somewhere.”
No you don’t, Mary Kay. You can leave.
He sighs. “Well all right then. But what do we mean by ‘stupid stuff’?”
You, rat. You are the stupid stuff and it’s hard being a statue, holding this
mug of piss. Coffee. Coffee.
“You know what it means, Phil. You were there. The dresser. House stuff.”
He is silent and the silence is worse than the engines because what does the
silence mean? Are you making eyes at each other? Are you noticing that the
bathroom door is closed when it’s usually open?
Your voice is flat. “Okay, just say it. What’s wrong? And don’t bullshit me
about how it’s hard to be vulnerable. This only works if you are vulnerable.”
I love you like crazy and look at me in here. The definition of vulnerable.
“Well I dunno,” he says. “I was hoping that ‘stupid stuff’ was more about…
Emmy, for fuck’s sake, you know I don’t wanna go to this movie night thing.”
“And you know I do, Phil. You know I planned it.”
“I know.”
“And I have to go.”
“Emmy…”
“I don’t know, Phil. You used to like the way I am…” I like the way you are.
“You used to say how you needed me because I plan things, because I care,
because I’m someone who makes the world go round. And now… it’s like I repulse
you.”
“Em, the guys are only here one night.”
“Right. Same way they were here last month. And the month before.”
“But they’re playing.”
“And tonight you’re busy. As a lot of married men are every once in a fucking
while.”
“See, I try to talk and you get nasty.”
“You think this is nasty? You call this talking?”
You throw your pen at the window and thank God you didn’t throw it at my
door. You lay into him and you call him out on his bullshit—yes—and you
remind him that you are there for him. You take care of him. “My whole life, I
go to things alone. Open houses at school because you’re sleeping or birthday
parties at night because of your show. And do I complain? No. And I want one
night from you and this is how it is.”
“Hey now, gimme a little credit. I’m on hiatus. Layla said it, Em. You wanted
me to take a break from the show and what did I do? I took a break.”
“Right. And that’s how you want to spend your hiatus. With the guys.”
You’re crying now. You miss me so much and you can’t take it anymore.
You’re trying so hard and he’s not trying at all, patting you on the back, literally,
like you’re a dog. He’s walking now. He picks up the pen and he signs the little
unnotarized contract. “I will go to the movie thing and I will do the dresser so
you don’t have to keep asking me to do to the dresser.”
You sigh, pleased. I think you touch him. “See,” you say. “We got this, we do.”
No, you fucking don’t and he is not going to that movie night—contracts are
like promises, made to be broken—and he grabs his coat so aggressively that he
nearly takes down a chair. “Okay,” he says. “I gotta split. I gotta go to a
meeting…” The manipulation, Mary Kay. What he really means is My addiction is
all your fault, just like my life. And it’s bullshit. He’s the luckiest man on the
fucking planet.
You blow your nose—probably on a harsh napkin, no Kleenex on your table
—and you tell him you’re sorry. “But, Phil, sometimes it’s like you don’t
remember any of the good stuff. I mean come on. You know why I chose this
movie…”
He makes a noise and whistles and this is TMI. It’s obvious that a hundred
years ago you went down on him in a theater and Alanis Morissette would be
disgusted—I’m sorry but he’s just not a very attractive man—but I am a good
guy. It’s ancient history and I forgive you. You were young and look at you
trying so hard to spice up your bland marriage. You really are a fighter and it’s
your right to try to save your marriage. I will allow it. I do allow it. Because in
our relationship, we give each other space to breathe. Like now, you’re pushing
Phil to leave so that he can go to the hardware store to get a wrench before his
meeting as if you know I need him outta here. You have to get back to the
library—you told them you needed to run errands and your marriage is an
errand—and the front door opens and the front door closes and finally both of
you are gone.
I turn on the light and breathe and what a different kind of world it is with
you, Mary Kay. In my old world, I left the mug of urine behind and it drove me
to the brink, to Los Angeles. But in our world, I take the mug with me and the
mug is made of paper. It will disintegrate. And Bainbridge is showing off today
—gray skies turning blue—and I am safe and there is no urine in this cup. There
never was. It’s just coffee, and I pour the coffee on the damp ground—always
damp, permanently moist—and I recycle the cup and I like our world. I do. I
like the squirrel that sits nearby and I like the woman in a North Face jacket
and I like her happy black Lab and I am beaming. Smiling ear to ear and this is
why people love horror stories: It’s not for the gore. It’s for the moment when
the good guy escapes just like you wanted him to because it means that for once
on this unjust, dying planet, the good guy wins.
I feel inspired. I text your rat: Hey man, I got a buddy in town. HUGE FAN.
We’re up at Dock Street and if THE Phil DiMarco showed up unannounced. Just
sayin’…
Two hours later, I’m sitting on a picnic table in the woods by the dock when
your rat’s jalopy comes into view. He gets out of the car, more puffed up than
he’s been in a while.
“Jay,” he says. “It’s your lucky day. Where’s your buddy at?”
“Oh shit,” I say. “I should have texted you but my buddy had to go meet up
with some chick he met in the airport.”
He is a deflated balloon—the poor fucker just tweeted about how much he
loves to surprise his Philistans. He lights a Marlboro Red. “No big whoop,” he
says. “Good to get out of the house.” He leans against a tree by my table. That’s
Phil. Always leaning. “You been good?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Some shit went down with my mom, but it’s all good.”
Phil feels so sorry for himself right now. He drove here ready to dazzle a fan
and now he has to listen to me talk about my mother. Ha. He has no choice but
to ask me what happened.
“Oh shit,” I say. “I don’t know where to begin…”
“Women stuff?”
I nod and he snorts. “Try living with one.”
Bingo. “Hard times with the wife?”
“I’m in a fight for my life. It’s the kinda shit you can only understand if
you’ve been married for twenty years…” Typical narcissist. “We’re doing it, ya
know, we’re in counseling, we’ve both made some mistakes but tonight… tonight
my boys are in town.”
“No shit? Where?”
He withholds the details. For now. “Point I’m trying to make… see my boys
mean something to me, man. And my wife is acting like she’s my mother… They
do that. They get mixed up in their heads.”
“Jesus. She won’t let you go see the guys?”
“She wants me to watch a movie with her. Says I have to. I been a bad boy…”
“Oh come on,” I say. “She married a bad boy.”
He smiles. “This is true.”
“I don’t know shit about marriage…” Yes I fucking do. “But to me, a marriage
is kinda like a guitar, right? You need tension in those strings or you can’t make
any music.”
Phil blows a smoke ring. “The protégé makes a good point, yes he does.”
I keep going, Mary Kay. I tell him that you want him to fight back, to be
more like the rebel she married. He flicks his cigarette in the woods—such a
fucking asshole—and the suspense might kill me. He blows a smoke ring.
“So,” he says. “How’d ya like to meet the band?”
A couple hours later, Phil and I are in the city. Free men. Ready to rage.
He lights a cigarette and I check my inside pocket for my Rachael Ray knife.
Of course I brought a weapon. This is the city and as we all know, cities are not
Cedar Fucking Cove.
He has to check in with Ready Freddy to make sure I’m good to get in and I
check up on you. You’re making an Instagram story about getting ready for
#DateNight—the denial is disturbing—and you’re dressing up like Winona Ryder
in a flowery sack dress—not your look—and Phil finishes up his call with Ready
Freddy and sighs.
“Jesus. She’s still bugging me about this fucking movie night.”
“Did you tell her you’re not going?”
“I told her I’m in a meeting,” he says. “She should know better than to bug
me.”
We get into an Uber—I order the car, as if it’s my honor—and he’s lecturing
the driver about music—Huh, I’ve never heard of “Drake”—and the driver will be
right to give me a shitty rating. I make sure my phone is on mute and watch a
new scene in your Instagram story. You changed into a Red Bed red T-shirt and
pajama pants. Psychic Hotline Depressed Winona. You look scared. Defeated.
You know he’s not coming to play husband. Why don’t you just give up?
Phil groans. “Another text. Jesus, woman, lay off.
I keep my mouth shut and Phil whistles at the driver. “Hey man,” he says.
“We’re gonna jump out right here.”
We’re two blocks away from the bar and we’re on the sidewalk and Phil tells
me to stop.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I just gotta make a quick call.”
He leans against a building and he can’t call you right now, in front of me.
I’ve managed to keep my life with Phil separate from our life and that’s no easy
thing in Cedar Fucking Cove. If he puts me on the phone to back up whatever
bullshit story he’s got planned, we die. He’s praying—don’t pick up don’t pick up—
and I am on his side for once—don’t pick up, don’t pick up—and he bounces in his
boots. “Voicemail!”
He lights a cigarette and he’s a hands-free smoker. “Hey, Em, so listen. My
sponsor thinks it’s not a good move for me to go on the date night thing. The
therapy we’re doing is great, but it’s a lot on me.” He’s not a musician, Mary Kay.
He’s an actor. “I’m in the weeds and it’s not about the boys. I just can’t do a big-
ass night with book people… I love you, Em. I just… I can’t be your guy. Not
tonight.” And then he winks at me. “And come on. You said it. It’s just one
night. You know if I’m not sober, I’m nothing. Dresser gets done tomorrow, I
swear. Love ya, babe.”
It’s a miracle that I don’t throw up on the sidewalk and we walk to the
Tractor Tavern and it’s not what I expected but it’s what I should have
expected. The goons at the door are right out of central casting and they need
dental surgery and you can feel them hoping they get to bust out the pepper
spray. There’s a poster that makes big promises—ALL religions. ALL countries of
origin. ALL sexual orientations. ALL genders. We stand by you and YOU ARE SAFE
HERE—and I bet these guys piss on that sign every night.
“All right,” Phil says. “Lemme do some business first. You’ll meet the guys
after they jam. You don’t wanna meet them now, when they’re all nervous and
shit.”
I happily hide by the bar like a shy fan boy and Phil’s boys are not happy to
see him. This isn’t even a real concert, it’s a glorified open mic, but the way they
suck up the oxygen makes me want to jump on the bar and scream YOU ARE
NOT WARREN ZEVON NOT ONE OF YOU. My phone pings. You added to
your story and the story is a sad one. Reality Bites is a bust. Only four couples
showed up—three Mothballs and one we-just-moved-here newlyweds—and
none of them are in costume and there you are in a sleeveless red T-shirt, stuck
in the movie without Ben Stiller, without Troy. And you know what? Fuck the
fecal-eyed multigenerational family and fuck the knit skullcap couple too
because how dare they do this to you?
Your rat is begging his boys not to go onstage—You’re gonna ruin our name, the
acoustics are shit—and Ready Freddy is mute and Little Tony does all the talking
Nothing’s ever gonna be perfect—and the three of them remind me of my kittens.
Our kittens.
The boys head backstage to warm up and Phil whistles at me like I’m a dog. I
obey and follow him toward the stage as he mutters about how the show is
gonna suck. One band leads to another band and you’ve gone silent in your
stories and it’s crowded. It’s loud. I read Killing Eve and I saw Killing Eve and I
could stab your rat with Rachael Ray right here on the dance floor but if I did
that, the management would have to take down the sign that promises safety
inside. I’m not heartless. I don’t want the Tractor staff to suffer for Phil’s crimes.
He elbows me and screams into my ear. “See that bass player dancing?
Fuckin’ A, man. Never trust a bass player who sways his hips. You feel the music
in your hands, not your hips.”
I check my phone. No more scenes in your story and you really did give up. I
bet you’re home by now, crying as you pack his trash bags and throw them out
the window. I deserve a fucking break so I tell him I need a drink and fight my
way through the crowd.
The bartender screams in my face. “Whaddya want?”
He takes my card and I order a vodka soda and he’s slow and the glasses are
plastic and I look up and no. No.
It’s you.
You’re here. Less than twenty feet away in your costume and my plan
backfired. The rat will want you to meet his fan boy and the bartender has my
credit card and you are hugging Little Tony and the band is covering “One.”
I did all of this for you and you came here to forgive that fucking rat and now
you turn around and, Shit, Mary Kay. Do you see me?
28
You didn’t see me. Right? Right.
I slipped out the door and caught an Uber to a ferry and I made it home and
I took care of myself because no one takes care of me. Now I blast the U2 song
on repeat on my sound system—sorry, cats, but Dad needs this right now—and I
sit in the shower in a ball of nudity, like David Foster Wallace in the asylum
except nobody’s watching me because I’m not special. I’m not a writer and I’m
not a rock star and I saw a side of you I’ve never seen until tonight. You love
being with the band. You’re probably mounting your rat right now and I put on
my pants and I throw on a T-shirt—Nirvana—and you “worry” about becoming
your mother? Well, I am my mother, blasting my music and slamming cabinets
and wiping my hands on Kurt Cobain’s face.
You think Phil is special? Well, I am not a rock star. But I am special. I’m
special because I actually take responsibility for my actions. I don’t live my life
on a wagon and make you think it’s your fault every time I fall off. I’m special
because I’ve never even done a line of cocaine, let alone heroin, and if you knew
anything about my fucking childhood, you’d know that I’m the special one. Not
him. Me.
You are changing in my mind and it hurts but I can’t stop it. Even your office
looks different to me now. You sit in there and look at pictures of Whitney
Houston—Buried—and Eddie Vedder—Married—because you like to love
“special” people from afar. I was your star—Volunteer of the Month—and I was
your rock—Fiction Specialist—and how come I don’t know how to make you see
that I am the special one?
You just don’t love me, do you? I keep seeing you in that bar, hugging Phil’s
boys.
I’m not a star and I’m not your star and my doorbell rings—fuck you, Oliver
—and I ignore it so now the asshole is pounding on my door and he has some
nerve and I will knock his materialistic head off—fuck it, you don’t love me,
why bother trying to be good?—and I open the door and it’s not Oliver.
It’s you.
Bono wonders aloud if he asked too much and you tossed your Winona Red
Bed T-shirt costume—you’re back in your trademark tights—and your arms are
two bare branches, no leaves. You’re here. Did you see me at the Tractor and am
I about to get run over, bitten by reality, and why aren’t you saying anything
and what do I do and then you open your mouth.
“It’s over, Joe. I did it. It’s done.”
I can’t speak. I just said goodbye to you because you went to Phil but now
you changed your mind. You’ve come to me. You throw your arms around me
and I lift you up and your legs are vines growing into me, onto me, and the
recording of this song is bombastic. Live. There are strings in an orchestra,
superior to guitars, and it is opera, it is rock, it is you, loving me with your whole
body, not just your fox eyes but your paws and your toes and your fingernails
and your lips—both sets—shoes are off, tights are shredded—and I deliver you
to the Red Bed and this time there is no hesitation. No boundary. No sit.
This is your one life and we are one and you are my soulmate, wet and warm,
and I am inside of you, reborn. I shake, you shake, and we are virgins who know
what we’re doing, we are teenagers in a car—there is steam on the windows all
around us—and your Murakami is below and then it is on top and I am a boy
and I am a man and you are a girl and you are a woman. We are reverberating,
multiplying—you are coming, oh this is a big one—and you are special—you
know how to touch me—Oh God, Joe, Oh God—and I am special—you taught me
how to touch you—and then we finish.
“Oh God,” you say. “Oh God, Joe.”
We are alive and dead and you just keep saying the magic words—Oh God,
Joe. Oh God—as you tell me you felt me in your toes and your eyeballs and the
hairs in your nostrils and in the lining of your stomach and you are funny and
gross and it just comes out. I can’t help it. “I love you, Mary Kay.”
You don’t miss a beat. “I love you, Joe.”
The L-words drag us down. Heavy as the music, the music that makes it okay
for us to be wordless and I can’t tell if that’s your heart or my heart and I know
you love me and I know I love you but it didn’t need to be said. The kittens
know we’re finished and they’re making the room theirs again. You laugh and
blow a kiss to your favorite and you roll into me and your eyelids hit mine. Your
nose too. You’re so close that I can’t see, that I can see. You aren’t getting Closer
anymore. You are closest.
“Joe.”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. We can forget I said it. We can… we can not say
it.”
You wrap me up in your branches and you say there is no need to be sorry
and you kiss my hair, you kiss my head, and you say you wish you could reach
inside my body and kiss my liver and my kidneys, and I squeeze your ass—you
are my own little Hannibal Lecter and you laugh—you are sick—and I laugh—
Okay, Hannibal—and you tell me you wanted Hannibal and Clarice to get
together and I tell you I did too and you sigh. “I wish I could understand why
Nomi can’t let go of Klebold.”
“Do you remember when it started?”
You sigh. “Maybe it’s because I used to joke that Hannibal Lecter is my book
boyfriend, which is evidence for my Worst Mother Ever award… In the middle
of the night I get fired up… I’m gonna drag her to a therapist, gonna full-on
intervene. But in the morning, I don’t have that urgency… I should probably do
something but I just want it to go away on its own.”
“It will,” I say. “Don’t forget that she’s yours. You made her…” Same way I
made my son. “And you’re right to trust the day. Nights make everything worse.”
You tell me I’d be a good dad and I am a good dad and you laugh. “Wait… is
this song on repeat?”
You love me so much you didn’t notice the music until now and I tell you I’m
weird and you tell me I’m passionate.
The song ends and it begins again, and the audience cheers and it sounds like
a hundred candles lit in the dark and the solo twang of the instrument leads to
more cheers and the people in the audience sing along and we sing along too, in
our own way, with our bodies, our bodies that we already know by heart.
29
We are three and a half weeks into our show: The Office: NC-17. XXX. I am on my
hands and knees and I am wiping down the Red Bed and you are ten feet away,
clothed. Tights on. Professional. But that’s not how you were last night!
Oh, Mary Kay, I read about this kind of sex and I thought I had had this kind
of sex but I was wrong. Your Murakami is my favorite place on the planet. Your
buns have given way to ponytails—you had to do something to express the new
love in your life—and we are a secret for now and there is nothing more fun in
this world than a really good, juicy fucking secret.
I walk outside to go to Starbucks and Oliver is on my tail. A buzzkill. A
housefly.
“FYI,” he says. “It’s illegal to fornicate in a public library.”
I don’t kiss and tell and I don’t fuck and tell but Oliver is no dummy. We all
know when our friends are getting laid. “So call the cops, Oliver. Or arrest me.
Can you do that? Or is that just some Police Academy bullshit?”
He stops walking. “She has a husband.”
“And he slept with her best friend.” Oliver is an Angeleno so this doesn’t
land the way it should. “He slept with her for ten-plus years.”
“Yikes,” he says. “And the kid? Does the kid know?”
“About the affair? Hell no. Oliver, it’s fine. They’ve had problems for years.
The kid’s on her way to college…” It’s really hitting me, Mary Kay. Spring has
sprung—it’s drizzling but the rain has purpose, flowers are blooming, and we
really are on our way.
“If he loses his shit and kills you…”
“He’s not that type of guy. And the woman he had the affair with… well,
you’ve seen her. Sort of.”
Once in a while I like to remind Oliver that he knows where a woman is
buried and it’s like those cartoons where you can see his blood pressure rising
and then he coughs. He shifts. He tries to be the boss of me. “You say this, but I
listened to this Sacriphil stuff, my friend, and there’s a lotta violence in there.”
“Exactly, he’s a musician. He has drug issues. He beats himself up, not anyone
else.”
Oliver yawns. “All right,” he says. “I sent you some Eames chairs.”
“How many fucking chairs can you fit in that place?”
He’s placated and I carry on to Starbucks and I buy his stupid chairs and I
buy myself a Frappufuckingccino because it’s all finally happening. Your rat has
moved into your junk room, where he sleeps on a futon—he doesn’t even get a
mattress but then he did fuck your best friend—and we have to take baby steps
because of the Meerkat but soon you and the rat will be like Billy Joel’s Brenda
and Eddie: divorced!
You really are getting a divorce as a matter of course and it begins with an
indoor separation, behind closed doors so that Nomi can get used to the idea of
you two moving apart. You’re feeling good about it because Nomi is doing
better—She says she saw it coming and I guess in a way she’s lucky because with my
parents, I was floored—and I’m so happy for you and the Meerkat, for us.
Naturally, Phil isn’t being a very good sport. You told him that you can’t
forgive him for bailing on you that night and he’s Philin’ the Blues in a major way.
Last night, he spent the whole show ranting about how Courtney Love should
be behind bars because she murdered Kurt Cobain because he knows better than
to lash out at you and even the Philistans who called in were annoyed.
Phil, man, just play some damn music.
Phil man, you know you’d be up there with Nirvana if the world was a fair place.
Can you play “Sharp Six”?
Phil, man, when are we gonna get a new album?
He ignored the requests and degraded himself further, accosting Eric Crapton
for writing about “Tears in Heaven” as if the only hell on Earth is losing a child, as if
the pansy’s ever been to heaven. Oh, you should have heard him, Mary Kay. “I have
a daughter, man, and don’t get me wrong. I’d die if something happened to my
kid, man, if someone harmed her… but Eric Clapton walks around like he
cornered the market on sorrow and no he didn’t… the guy’s still going! Still
living! Got a wife and a big rehab resort in the Bahamas or some shit and let me
tell you a little something about the blues, man. The blues are blue. Not blue as
in the Bahamas. They’re midnight, man. Real blues shut you down and shut you
up. Trust me, I know.”
Obviously if he really was in a Springsteen kind of blue, in the grave of his
mind, he wouldn’t have the energy to pontificate. He’s just in whiny dick mode.
“Jay” texted him to check in and he was rude to “Jay”: No offense man, but someday
if you have a family you’ll understand that family shit eats up the time. Peace out. I’m
in the zone writing.
It worries me to think of you under the same roof as him, but you’re right.
He’s the father of your Meerkat and these things do take time. And I didn’t kill
him, Mary Kay. You love me so much that I don’t have to kill him. You chose to
end it with him, and that’s why I’m lying low, why I just have to be patient and
listen to you, to the sweet things you say to me all day. You’re selling your house
and you’re talking to real estate agents and you’re using the D-word on a regular
basis.
The irony is that Melanda was sort of right. We were holding each other back and
who knows? If she never left… maybe I never would have gone through with a divorce.
I spoke to an attorney in the city. He thinks it’s gonna be quicker than that other
woman I spoke to, and he had good candy.
I am yours and you brought me candy from the divorce attorney’s office and
you left it in my backpack because once again, it’s a secret. All of it. Us. I pop
the red-and-white old-school candy into my mouth and I don’t have a jacket—
it’s getting warmer all the time, as if Mother Nature is so excited that she can’t
sleep—and I head out the door and we have the night off—you have to see your
Friends—but it’s a small island and I’m a restless man. With great sex comes
energy so I go for a walk and I pass by Eleven and it’s not my fault that the place
is all windows and it’s not my fault that our attraction is the invention of
electricity and you see me. You catch my eye and wave and I wave and we don’t
text—we are too good in person and we know what we have is special—so you
have to wait until the next day to see me, to tell me what I did to you. You lean
over your desk in your office.
“Buster…” That’s me. “When you walked by last night… it was like my body
and my mind and my soul… I know I’m probably not supposed to say this to you
but I have to say it because it’s all I can think about.”
I was right. This is an Everythingship. Not that we need a silly name for what
we are. “I didn’t sleep a wink.”
You smile. “Oh come on. Yes you did. People always say that they didn’t sleep
but everyone sleeps a little, at least a couple of hours.”
This is why I love you and I laugh. “Okay I was up most of the night, just
sitting on my couch literally doing nothing but thinking about you…” Except for
the part where I was listening to your husband’s show. “But I admit, four to six…
that’s a little blurry. I might have slept some.”
You beam at me. “Good,” you say. “This is good because I slept a couple hours
too, and, well, I like the idea of being in sync with you, Buster.”
It’s not my imagination. RIP Whitney and Eddie are sparkling for us—I
windexed them for you—and you can’t touch me, not right now. You wave a
hand—get back to work—and the day is long, it’s a sidewalk that will not fucking
end—sorry, Shel—and the bass throbs in my head—Hare Mary, Hallelujah
because as it turns out, you are my true savior, the reason I’ll be in such great
shape when my son comes to find me, the reason that for the first time in my
fucking life, I feel excited about my future. Do good and you get good and the
day ends and Oliver’s running out of wall space and you wish me a safe trip home
as if there is any danger, as if anything could hurt me now.
Eventually, night falls.
I go for a walk up Madison and what a different world it is, knowing that
we’ll be in that movie theater, at that diner, walking these streets until our
bodies break down on us. I reach the library and take the steps to our love seat
in the garden and whaddya know, Mary Kay. The door to the lowest level is
open. You didn’t lock up. I walk into the library and there you are on the Red
Bed, as promised.
Naked.
You want my hand on your neck and you want my other hand above your
Murakami, not on it, not yet, and the silence is deafening, equal parts sex and
love and after we finish we are mute. And then it’s time to play.
“Okay,” you begin. “We would need chain saws.”
“And a truck.”
“And a dolly.”
“A few dollies, Mary Kay. This thing is big.”
This is our plan. We’re going to steal the Red Bed. I squeeze you. “Do you
know about secular hymns?”
You nuzzle your head into my chest and your hair is a scarf, a blanket, a
godsend. “You mean songs about religion that aren’t quite about religion?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes, I know about secular hymns.”
“Well, I really like them. I think it’s because my parents were messed up
about religion, a little Catholic, a little Jewish… and my whole life, music was
the thing for me, the thing that made me feel connected to something larger,
especially secular hymns, or songs that have that theme about the collapse into
the dark and the climb back into the light, you know, where you remember that
you can’t have the rise without the fall.”
You kiss me twice and then you speak into the hairs on my chest.
“Hallelujah, Joe. I know exactly what you mean.”
I kiss you. “Being with you… it’s like it turns out that there really is a
crescendo. And it isn’t just about sex…”
You hold on to me and you are perfect. “I know,” you say. “The sex is… yeah…
but it’s like the magic is real, as if you really did pull a coin out of my ear.”
“I get it, Hannibal.”
Your hands are on my head, on my temples, and you purr. “Can I kidnap you
and lock you in a basement, Clarice?”
“If you insist,” I say. “But a little hint. The best way to kidnap someone and
lock them in a basement is to not give them a heads-up about your plan.”
You pinch my ears and I move my mouth along your body, down, down,
down, where I pull a rabbit out of your hat, your Murakami, your soul.
30
You pulled it off. You took a “personal day”—I love that you didn’t call it a sick
day—and you told me to be in the parking lot of Fort Ward at 11:00 A.M. We
take separate cars—secret lovers—and I get here first—I wanted to make sure
that RIP Melanda is still sleeping—she’s right where I left her—and it’s not the
easiest way to start a romantic day in the woods, but when is anything good
ever fucking easy?
I am leaning against Nomi’s dollhouse-roof shack when I see your car. The
mere sight of you gets me going and I am wearing a backpack—I really am Cedar
Cove Joe—and you were nervous that we would get caught but there are only
two cars in the lot. One is a truck with a trailer—those people are out on their
boat—and the other is a family truckster with Oregon plates. We are safe and
you are in clothes that are new to me, there are stars on your tights—a galaxy in
between them—and a long, soft black pullover, a mirror to my black sweater.
You say hello and you hear a branch snap and your pupils dilate but it was
nothing, just the woods. You’re a little nervous—this makes sense—and I don’t
take your hand—we’re in a parking lot—but I hold on to your eyes. “We’re
okay,” I say. “And remember, if anyone does see us, we just bumped into each
other on the trail.”
My words mean something to you and you nod. “Well, the bunkers are up
the hill. But since you’re the first timer…” Hardly, my night with Melanda is
unforgettable. “Do you want to take the long way or the short way?”
“What do you think, Mary Kay?”
You are red. Hot. In love. “Okay,” you say. “Long way it is.” You look up at
the roof. “Nomi used to love this.”
“Right,” I say, wondering if the door is locked, if it would be too much for us
to just go at it right here, in the shed. “She told me about that when we were
doing the tech help session.”
“Come on,” you say, and you’re right, Mary Kay. We can’t have sex in a house
that reminds you of your daughter and we are moving up the hill, on the paved
path, and I wonder if the blanket I brought is big enough and you blurt, “Hey,
do you believe in heaven?”
“Sometimes,” I say. “Do you?”
“Sometimes,” you say. “It’s more like you lose someone, you want to think
that they found something new, something they couldn’t find here, you know?”
I picture RIP Beck in a clean, well-kept home finally finishing a book and I
see RIP Candace writing songs about how she would do it all differently and I
smile. “I hear you,” I say. “I think heaven is a great idea.”
“Who did you lose?”
RIPCandaceBenjiPeachBeckHendersonFincherDelilah. “No one yet. I’m lucky that
way.”
“Yeah,” you say. “But let’s get down to it. Do you believe there’s more than all
this or do you think that when we die… that’s it?”
“What do you think?”
“No,” you say. “I’m not falling for that trick twice.”
You nudge me and you want to know me as badly as I want to know you.
“Well, I think it’s like Santa Claus.”
“How so?”
“When I was a kid, I didn’t ‘believe’ in Santa because I knew no matter how
many flyers I left out on the table with the G.I. Joes circled in red… I mean my
mom flat-out said, You’re not playing with dolls.
“Oh Jesus.”
I tell you that she was a piece of work and a crow flies overhead and I
wonder if she’s dead. “The thing is,” I say. “I remember that moment, you know,
when you’re starting to understand the world… and you see some kid at the
playground and that kid’s actively trying to be good because that kid actually
believes in Santa but then you see his mom and his snacks and his brand-new
sneakers and it’s like… well of course that kid believes in Santa. Santa shows up
at his house. He has reason to believe and I guess I always had reason to
question things.”
You link your arm through mine. You don’t care about anyone seeing us, not
anymore, and you don’t push me for all the gory details about my shitty
childhood. You know that I need your warmth and you give that to me and then
you sigh. “For me it was Glamour Gals.”
“I saw those dolls on your Instagram.”
I love that I can say this to you, that there’s no implication that I’m stalking
you and this walking, this talking, this is my reward for being a good man even
though the world wasn’t good to me when I was a boy. You’re telling me about
Glamour Gals, the worst dolls you can imagine, no jobs, just ball gowns and big hair,
and then your grip on my arm tightens.
“So here’s one nice thing about my husband.”
Ex-husband and this is our date not his but you are you. Always thinking.
Always yeah. “What’s that?”
“Well, that shack with the roof. Nomi wanted it for Christmas and she
wouldn’t let it go and we told her we can’t steal a roof and it was driving me
nuts all month because I kept asking her what she wanted and it’s the roof the
roof the roof and Phil’s kinda checked out all month but then Christmas
morning, he drags this giant present out of our shed. I mean the man had never
touched wrapping paper in his life… and there it was. Nomi’s roof. He had the
grass, he even planted a few tiny flowers on it. And it wasn’t just a present for
her, it was a present for me.”
My heart is turning white and it used to be red and this is our date and
you’re staring at the sky when you should be staring at me and I can’t go back in
time and build Nomi a fucking roof and she’s too old for that now and you take
a deep breath. “Okay,” you say. “I know that was weird just now.”
“It’s not weird.”
But your arm isn’t linked through mine. You stop walking and you’re stiff.
You’re going to tell me you can’t leave him because of one nice fucking thing he
did a hundred fucking years ago on a holiday, which doesn’t even count because
everyone gets off on doing nice things on holidays, glorified fucking Sundays
when men get trophies for emptying the dishwasher or building a dollhouse as if
one good deed makes up for being an INVISIBLE NONPRESENT SELFISH
DRUGGED-UP ASSHOLE every other day of the goddamn year.
But then you take my hands. “Joe, I can’t pretend he doesn’t exist.”
You pretended I didn’t exist. “I know that.”
“And I don’t want to make him out to be the bad guy or anything.”
He is. “Absolutely.”
“And I don’t want to check myself every time I think about him because…
you know, one of these days… in theory… you’ll meet him.”
Already did! “I know.”
My heart is pounding and RIP Melanda is in the Whisper Room in the sky
and your husband is not. He really is here and I really will have to meet him and
I really do need to tell you that I already did meet him and at least, if I tell you
right now, you can’t run away because we’re alone in the woods, on a trail.
“And all my stories, well this is the weird thing about us. I made up this
other version of myself the first time we talked on the phone, when I talked
about me and Nomi, about our life… I erased him. But most of my adult life… he
was there or he was nearby. He’s a part of all my stories and I don’t want to lie
to you anymore. And I don’t want you to shut down on me every time I say his
name.”
Most marriages end in divorce and most women don’t want to praise their
vile ex-husbands, but you’re not most women. You’re sensitive. “Don’t be
ridiculous, Mary Kay. You guys have a lot of history together and I get it.”
You kiss me. “You are fucking amazing, Joe Goldberg.”
Yes I am! Phil ruined enough already and this day is ours and we’re walking
again, lighter on our feet and I smack your ass and you jump. You liked it. I
tease you that this is hardly what I’d call a hike, and you tell me the hill is gonna
get steeper and I tell you I don’t believe you and you’re flirting up a storm and
then my phone buzzes. Fucking Oliver.
You glare at me. “Come on, really?”
“It will only take a second.”
“I turned off my phone before I got out of the car, Joe.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Well, that’s why I like to hike because for me, you turn off the devices and
are just in the moment, you know?”
I turn off my phone and you smile—good—but then you pull a Polaroid
camera out of your purse and I tell you that you’re cheating but you are a sly fox.
“This is different,” you say. “It’s not a communication device. Say cheese.”
I hate having my picture taken and Melanda is in the trough in the backdrop
and the world is full of murder podcast people who want to think the worst of
people and I see a headline from hell. ACCUSED MURDERER SAYS CHEESE IN
FRONT OF THE SPOT WHERE HE BURIED LOCAL FEMINIST.
But I didn’t fucking kill her, I really didn’t, and you snap a picture and
whistle. “Now, that was a real smile.”
Life is for the living—it’s a well-known fact—and on we go, and you are my
tour guide, telling me about the origins of the bunkers that are right around the
bend. “They built a base here over a hundred years ago. It was the last line of
defense for the Bremerton naval shipyard.”
“Pressure much?”
You smile like a teacher intent on finishing her lecture. “This was a lookout
and soldiers watched for any warships entering the sound. And then it was a
camp for needy kids…” And then it was a place for us to fuck. “And then it was a
camp for sailors…”
You glimmer at me the way you did that day when you were pushing
Murakami on that old man and I want school to end. Now. “You really know
your Fort Ward, Mary Kay.”
“No questions just yet,” you say. “See, it really gets interesting in 1939. This
was a radio base where they intercepted messages about the war, trying to
protect us from an attackbut then they shut all that down in the fifties.” You
scratch your head in your head but you make eye contact to make sure that I’m
in there too. And I am. “Well,” you say. “That concludes my lecture but I just… I
love it here because it reminds you of how things change and don’t change all at
once. I mean look at these fucking bunkers!”
You jump onto a step and I join you and I do what you want. I look at these
fucking bunkers. “They’re still here,” I say.
“Yeah,” you say. Bunker rhymes with hunker, you know? That’s what I
thought for a long time, that I had to be like those soldiers, you know? Hunker
down in the bunker in case something bad happens and well… here we are.”
I kiss you but you deflect and grab my hand like we’re in high school and you
just have to show me your favorite graffiti—GOD KILLS EVERYONE—and I cringe at
the big brown poop emoji and you don’t like that either and you show me what
you do like, the lower levels of the bunkers, and I squeeze your hand and you
squeeze right back. “I knew you’d get it.”
“Well of course I get it. I get you.”
There is no more getting Closer. Finally we are there. Here. The sidewalk
ended and the pavement gave way to dirt and your hair went from a bun to a
ponytail to a mane that runs down your back and you lead me down steep, deep
steps into a little square cave and it’s a filthy, musty, rectangular hole in the
ground and you pull off your black sweater and sigh.
“Well, City Boy, tell me there’s a blanket in that backpack.”
We did it.
Your favorite place is now my favorite place and we’ve had sex in the bunker
at Fort Ward and we feasted on beef and broccoli—I came prepared—and we
passed out and woke up and did it again and went back to sleep and the floor is
fucking concrete and isn’t that how you know you’re in love?
“Come on,” you say. “I can play hooky but I can’t disappear.”
You want to know where I had sex in high school and I tell you about a
guidance counselor and you’re mortified but I assure you she wasn’t my
guidance counselor and… you’re still a little mortified and I let you take more
Polaroids and I take some of you and we reach the parking lot—it’s just us—and
I want to tell you this was the best day of my life.
You hand me the pictures. “You should probably hang on to these.”
I unlock my car and you unlock your car. You grab your phone and turn it
on and I turn on my phone and you sigh. “I’m so glad we did this.”
“Me too.”
Your phone comes back to life and my phone comes back to life and my
news is no news—Oliver wants more Eames chairs and Shortus wants beer—but
your news is bad news. I know because you’re listening to a voicemail. I know
because you gasp and turn away.
“Mary Kay.”
You thrash an arm at me. Bad sign. Did someone see us?
You drop your phone onto the pavement and you turn around and all the
red I put into your cheeks is gone. You are white as RIP Melanda and do you
know? You scream at the sky and is it your father? Did he have a stroke?
I reach for you but you crumple to the ground and your voice is a horror
movie and your hands are in your hair and then you say it, barely yet loudly.
“Phil. He… he’s gone. He… I wasn’t there and he’s gone and Nomi…”
Phil. Fuck. I reach out to you and this time you don’t just flinch. You shove
me away and you run to your car and you are in no condition to drive and you
can’t even get the door open but you warn me to stay the fuck away from you right
now—Why Phil? How?—and you are too mad for motor skills and you throw
your backpack at your car and you look at that roof and all the rage transforms
into sadness—you are sobbing—and then just like that, it turns back into rage.
You point a finger at me. “This day never happened. I wasn’t here.”
It’s not a request. It’s an order. It’s a sit. He’s gone—I am in shock, I didn’t do
it—but the way you peel out of here and leave me in the dust, it’s like you think
I did.
31
Here’s my problem with wakes. You lay out all these finger sandwiches, all these
pizzas from Bene and then you glance at me as I’m biting into a tiny slice of the
coppa—best on the menu—and you look away as if what I’m doing is somehow
disrespectful to your dead husband because now that he’s dead, he’s THE BEST
HUSBAND, THE BEST FATHER, THE BEST MAN. I’m alone at the buffet
because I don’t have a date—you’re his widow—and I spit my pizza into the
napkin and what a waste of food and okay, so he made your daughter a
Christmas present and it took time—a whole lot of precious time—but your living
room is a hotbed of lies and FUCK YOU, RIP Phil.
How could he do this to us, Mary Kay? You were doing so good—leaving him,
leaving him behind—and Nomi was doing so good—she saw the divorce coming a
mile away—but that rat fucker had to ruin everything. He didn’t get T-boned by
a truck on his way home from “writing.” No. Your lazy, selfish (soon to be ex)
husband had to go and overdose in your house. Your daughter had to come home
and find him. And nobody will say what we all know: HE KNEW HIS WAY
AROUND DRUGS AND HE WAS JEALOUS OF KURT COBAIN WHO
DIED OF AN OVERDOSE IN HIS HOUSE. You’re a woman. So of course you
feel like it’s
All. Your. Fault.
You’re wrong, Mary Kay. Dead wrong.
You should be disgusted and maybe deep down you are, but how would I
know? You haven’t spoken to me since you fled from the parking lot at Fort
Ward. We said I love you and we were having sex on an increasingly regular and
exciting basis but now we are fucked. Nomi’s fucked. I’m fucked. You’re fucked.
And lazy Phil’s dream came true. He’s a dead rock star, possibly lounging in
heaven reading his obituary in Rolling Stone—remember when you asked if I
believe in heaven?—and all I can do is stand here in the corner of your living
room dipping a triangle of pita bread into what’s left of the garlic hummus.
Will I ever hold you again? Will you ever smile again?
I glance at you. You’re wiping your nose on a napkin while a Mothball pats
your back and your dead-eyed daughter is just sitting on a chair, not touching
the little sandwiches on her plate and the outlook for us is grim and fuck you,
Phil DiMarco. Fuck you all the way back to the day you wormed your way into this
unjust world.
You shouldn’t feel guilty and I don’t feel guilty, Mary Kay. Sure, I bought
M30s for him—it was a particularly dark moment in our courtship—but Oliver
took them away. And yes, I bought heroin for Phil. I put heroin in his room
because heroin is (was) the devil he knows. But I am a rational person. I know
that your rat didn’t die because of me. He didn’t even die from a heroin
overdose. He died because he drove to that shithole in Poulsbo and picked up
some of those poisonous M-fucking-30s all by himself. I didn’t kill Phil and you
didn’t either, but you’re saying it again right now, telling that sympathetic
Mothball that you pushed him over the edge.
I want to storm through these mourners and grab your shoulders and tell you
to stop it.
People get divorced every day, Mary Kay. There’s nothing scandalous about
it and your rat was a brat. He couldn’t wait until he was living in some shit box
too-old-to-be-called-a-bachelor-pad to jump off that wagon? Nope! He
swallowed those pills in this house. All he had to do was drive to the Grand
Forest or one of the countless places on this island where people go to do bad
things. It turns my stomach, Mary Kay. Even Oliver cringed and made
aggressively passive-aggressive remarks about my being “the other man.” I told
him to read the Basic Fucking Text and learn that recovery is an uphill battle,
that no one is to blame, especially not me. He cut me off and told me that my
body count on this island is up to two—BULLSHIT, I KILLED NO ONE. What
Phil did to this family is terrible, Mary Kay. I could never do something like
that. Neither could you. Now you pull at your hair—How did I miss it?—and I
want to comfort you. I have been trying to comfort you for three days now. But
you always shiver and turn away, as if you wish I were dead, me, the one who
made you happy.
I know. Life isn’t fair. But just once, I wanted love to be fair. I did everything
right. Everything. And now I’m losing you, aren’t I?
You knock over someone’s glass of beer and you snip. “Damn it, Lonnie,
there are coasters.
Lonnie apologizes and you’re crying again. “I’m sorry. I just… I’m so mad I
could kill him.”
Lonnie says that’s natural—since when is nature a synonym for good?—and
she’s encouraging you to let it all out and no! You know better, Mary Kay. You
don’t want to kill him because you read his favorite fucking book and I read it
too. We both know that addiction is a disease and these “friends”—you’ve never
mentioned Lonnie, not once—they’re not on your side. They’re not helping and
if anything, they’re making it worse by validating every mistruth you speak and
in that way, they’re like Phil’s fucking family.
What a bunch, Mary Kay! His mother and father are already gone, as if they
have somewhere else to be, and the brother never even came. Classy. According
to the obituary, the brother is a well-known life coach, which might be why he
couldn’t afford a fucking plane ticket. Well-known is code for 21,000 followers
and Tony Robbins he is not and I want things to go back to normal. I want
Phil’s parents to get on a plane and go back to Florida. Maybe they’ll leave
tomorrow. They didn’t show up at your wake party tonight—We’re mourning
privately—but oh fuck you, Phil’s family. Nobody likes hospitals and nobody
likes funerals but we all know that sometimes you have to suck it up and go.
And if they were decent people, you might not be quite so bad off.
You’re so guilt-stricken that you’re rewriting history and hiding behind your
invisible, brand-new rose-colored glasses. “He really was amazing…” Oh come
on, Mary Kay. “People don’t realize, he gave up his career to be home…” Lie. He
couldn’t get along with his bandmates and he had songwriter’s block. “He was
the best dad, we had all these great day trips to Seattle…” That’s another lie. He
was your teenage son storming off to play with guitars while you and the
Meerkat wasted money on tchotchkes. You blow your nose into a cocktail napkin.
“And I just should have known.”
The Mothball takes you in her old lady arms and you’re weeping again and
now I feel guilty for being so hard on you. I know it’s hard to lose someone, but
Jesus Christ, Mary Kay, you should lean into your rage because you’re right to be
mad. Addiction is a disease, yes, but he was a husband and he was a father and
instead of getting help, instead of taking care of himself so that he could stay
alive for his daughter, he jumped off the wagon. You slip off to powder your nose
poor choice of words, considering—and you cry more. You know it was a poor
choice of words and the Meerkat is still in a coma on the sofa. Staring at you.
She’s not crying. She can’t cry because you won’t stop crying. I grab another slice
of Bene pizza, a bigger one this time, and I fold it in half and pop the whole
fucking thing in my mouth.
Shortus elbows me. “ ’Sup. Where you been? I haven’t seen you at the gym.”
That’s Shortus for you. We’re at a fucking funeral luncheon and he’s talking
about CrossBore. He picks up a celery stick and chomps. “Don’t be letting
yourself go,” he says. “Don’t wanna wind up like this guy.”
The insensitivity of this poor dolt, and I pick a red pepper flake out of my
mouth. “It’s just a little pizza.”
“You ever try it?” he asks. And then he drops his voice to a whisper.
“Heroin?”
“No,” I say. “You?”
“I never would.” He shudders. “I don’t get it… Don’t these people know about
endorphins? Honestly, don’t they know about sex?”
It’s the worst thing to be forced to imagine right now, Shortus sticking his
Shortus inside some toned, nerve-ending-less CrossBore addict and it’s a
reminder that three days ago, in another lifetime, I was one of the happy people
on this planet. I was having sex with you. I scan the room and you’re not back
and in the library, you never slip out without letting me know where you’re
going.
You’re crossing over and it’s like I don’t exist, like you don’t want me to exist
and the Meerkat isn’t on the couch anymore. She’s gone too. I pick up my plastic
glass of Eleven Winery wine. “I hear you,” I say, because I learned my lesson and
I won’t waste my time debating with another stubborn, irrational dog. “I’m
gonna get some fresh air.”
You’re not in the powder room and I can’t go upstairs—we’re still a secret,
even if you haven’t kissed me or talked to me since you deserted me at Fort
Ward—and I step out the side door because maybe you are smoking. You did
that with the rat long ago.
“Hey.”
It’s the Meerkat and she’s smoking, ripping on her bong. “Nomi,” I say. “I
realize it’s a stupid question, but how are you?”
“Fucked in the head. You?”
I sip my plastic wine and she motions for the cup and she’s underage but she
saw a dead body for the first time in her life—been there—so I give her my
plastic chalice and she gulps it all down, too much, too fast. “Are your parents
alive?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure.”
“What did they do to you that was so shitty that you don’t know?”
“They ignored me.”
She nods. “Fuck ’em.”
“Nah,” I say, Good Joe, Compassionate Joe. “I used to feel that way. But you
get older, you realize that you don’t really hate anyone, even your shitty parents,
because everyone’s just doing the best they can.”
She coughs. Still not good at working that bong, still doesn’t have any
friends. I counted two teenagers inside and one was here with her parents and
the other was here for the wine. “That’s deep, Joe.”
“Not really,” I say. The last thing I want is for your Meerkat to feel that on
today, the second-worst day of her life, she has to be polite and grateful. See,
Mary Kay—I wish you could see me right now. I am Jack Nicholson at the end
of Terms of Endearment. I am stepping up with your kid and I am ready to be a
stepfather. I am here to help.
She puts her bong in an empty planter and she yawns and her arms are
outstretched above her head and she bursts out laughing. I don’t laugh with her
and I don’t judge her and soon she’s doubled over—I’m gonna pee my pants—and I
tell her it’s okay to do that, it’s okay to do anything right now.
She rolls her eyes and snorts. “Yeah right.
“I mean it, Nomi. It’s hard to lose someone. Your mother knows that.”
We hear footsteps and the door opens. Shortus. “Oh,” he says. “So this is
where the party’s at.”
It was his way of trying to ease the tension—fucking idiot is scared of real
emotions—and Nomi doesn’t laugh at the joke and he throws his arms around
her.
“I’m so sorry, Nomi. I just know that he loved you more than anything on the
planet.”
Except for heroin, the sound of his own voice, a woman’s mouth wrapped
around his Philstick, and his music, but that’s funerals for you. They bring out
the stupid in everyone, especially the stupid.
Nomi pats him on the back—“Thank you, Uncle Seamus”—and he pulls away
the way he should because he’s not really her fucking uncle and the girl needs
her space. “Tell you what,” he says. “When my mom died, everyone was like,
watch TV, binge, relax, but none of that worked for me…” Because you have no
attention span, you lightweight. “What did help me was endorphins.”
That’s the second time he’s used that word in twenty minutes and he will
never get married, will he? “Thanks,” she says. “I’ll remember that.”
He takes a deep breath and looks up at the trees. “I’m gonna go do a Murph
in honor of your old man,” he says. “I know he’d like that.”
Phil was a lazy fuck who never broke a sweat deliberately and he would not
like that at all. I smile. “That’s so nice, Seamus. Seriously.”
The second he’s gone it’s like he was never there and the Meerkat goes right
back to where we were. “Do you really think I can do anything I want right
now?”
“Yep.”
“And my mom won’t be pissed?”
“Nope.”
“Well, in that case, will you tell her I went to Seattle?”
I never offered to be her accomplice but she’s wearing a Sacriphil T-shirt and
her Columbine is poking out of her backpack and it’s one thing to have a
birthday party and have no kids show up but this is her father’s funeral and she
has no one in there. I know that feeling. When someone you loved in spite of
their imperfections is dead and no one in the world seems to care about what
that’s like for you.
“Do me a favor, Nomi. The bong stays here.”
She salutes me like JFK Jr. at his father’s funeral and takes off through the
backyard to the trail.
Inside, the guys from Sacriphil have picked up their instruments—I knew it
was only a matter of time before we had an Unplugged Phil-less jam session—and
there is an acoustic shark inside my shark—and I have a purpose now. I have to
find you. I worm my way around the room, skirting my fecal-eyed
multigenerational neighbors and for you this is a sad room, but for me this is a
hot zone. Mrs. Kahlúa is here and this cannot, will not, must not be Jay’s coming-
out party.
I cut through the kitchen but I’m fucked here too. The young woman who
warned me about Phil is standing in front of your refrigerator. The door is
blocking her face—thank you, door—but I recognize her hand. Two diamond
engagement rings. She’s having small talk with a court-ordered older alkie I’ve
seen at Isla and I am trapped and the guest bathroom door opens and I slip into
that bathroom again.
I close the door. Safe.
Someone knocks on the door. “If it’s yellow let it mellow. The pipes are
taking a beating!”
I run the faucet and eavesdrop on the NA people whispering about how long
they have to stay—GO NOW GO—and they are going—yes!—and I flush the
toilet—oops—and I exit the bathroom and here you are, in your kitchen,
surrounded by second- and third-tier Melandas. I clear my throat. “Mary Kay,” I
say. “You got a second?”
You’re mad at me but it’s not like I walked up to you and kissed you and
there is no way to put the toothpaste back in the fucking tube. We did go to
Fort Ward and you did mount me in a bunker—twice—and Dr. Nicky’s blog is
right: I have feelings too and I am allowed to have feelings.
You excuse yourself, and my palms are sweating. What I say now matters and
is it possible to say the right thing when you’re not yourself? You open the side
door and now it’s you and me by the planter and you light one of the rat’s
cigarettes and blow a smoke ring and who knew you could do that? “I don’t
want to do this right now, Joe. I can’t do this right now.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know, Joe. You don’t know what this is like for me.”
“I know.”
You look at me. Validated. And then you blow smoke in a poisonous straight
line. “I had no business turning off my phone. I have a child.”
“Let it out.”
You grit your teeth because it would be so much easier on you if I was being
an asshole right now but I’m not gonna do that for you. “All we had to do was
wait. You don’t know Phil…” Yes I do. “You don’t know that we had something
of a deal. I looked out for him and he…” Did nothing for you but drag you down.
“He needed me. I knew he was down and there I was off running around with
some fucking guy I barely know behind his back while my own husband was
dying inside.”
That was cruel but I am strong. “And you must feel horrible about that.”
“Well I feel like the biggest piece of shit that ever lived. He deserved better
from me.”
And you deserved better from him but this is the other thing I hate about
funerals, about wakes. We don’t get to blame the Deathday Boy. He’s like a
bridezilla. It’s his day and he gets to whine and cunt out about every stupid
thing in the world. “What can I do to help?”
You flick the cigarette on your own lawn and shrug. “Nothing,” you say, your
voice flattened by Klonopin and semi-Melandas and all the pressure of hosting
people in your home while you just die underneath. “There’s nothing anyone can
do or say to bring him back and honestly, that’s all I want. Anything you do is a
waste. Anything you say is a waste. Right now all I want in this world is the one
thing I can’t have. One more day with Phil to tell him that I know he’s hiding
heroin in his nightstand, under his amp, to take all of it and flush it down the
toilet and force him into a car, into a rehab clinic so that my kid doesn’t have to
go the rest of her life without a father, so that she doesn’t have to go through the
rest of her life being the one who found him. I’m a big girl. I know that I can’t
have that. But that’s where I am right now.”
You don’t touch me. You don’t make eye contact. You are a zombie with a
second set of teeth and they’re his teeth, constant proof that he was alive, and I
will be patient. I’ve been there, Mary Kay—I know what it’s like to lose someone
who was bad for you. I know you’re bleeding inside. That pain you’re in gives
you no right to hurt me but I won’t make this about me.
Unlike your dead rat, I am a strong man. A good man who’s able to put you
first and respect the reality that his death is harder for you than it is for me. But
you’re a widow now. You’re anointed with a new title and I too could kill that
fucking rat for what he did to us. His guys finish playing the one and only true
hit song that Phil ever wrote and the clapping is loud, too loud. You start crying
and shutting the slider behind you, leaving me on your deck alone and if you
had any intention of a future with me, you wouldn’t have closed that door.
32
I went home. I pigged out. I played some Prince, I played some Sinéad and I was
bracing myself for seven hours and fifteen days without a word from you. But I
was wrong, in the best way possible. You called me last night at 1:13 A.M. and you
cried and I let you cry and soon you were talking about Phil’s parents—They
always treated me like I wasn’t good enough and they think it’s my fault—and then
you were crying again—It’s all my fault—and then you were angry—How could he
do this to Nomi?—and then you were guilty—I should have been there for him, I
should have known this was too much. I was so good to you, Mary Kay. I
encouraged you to let it out and you fell asleep and I did not end the call. I
stayed up all night until you were coughing.
“Joe?” you said.
“Morning.”
“You’re still here.”
“Of course I am.”
You said it was the kindest thing anyone ever did for you—fuck that stupid
grassy dollhouse roof—and it’s been almost two weeks. You’re in mourning, still
guilt ridden. And I get it. Your separation was a secret and it’s complicated but
you texted me that you forgot to buy toilet paper—it’s always something—and I
went to the store and bought you toilet paper and you’re tearing the plastic.
“Huh.”
“What?”
“This is the right kind.”
I know because I’ve spent a lot of time in your house and I shrug. “It’s the
best kind, so of course it’s your kind.”
I make a note in my head: Buy Mary Kay’s overpriced toilet paper before she
comes to my house and then the sliding door opens and it’s Shortus, who’s
somehow become my unworthy rival in this irritating episode of our Cedar Cove
life. He cracks his knuckles and he cracks his back and sighs. “Your gutters are
officially clean, MK.”
You’re a grieving widow and obliged to your FriendsThank you, Seamus,
you’re a godsend—and you rummage around the refrigerator. “Okay, boys,” you
say, as if I am your son and Shortus is a friend I brought home from school.
“Who’s hungry?”
He plops into a chair and he is not a man, he is a fourth-grade boy. “I burned
a lot of calories out there, MK. I can eat!”
I wish he would go away. He’s different since RIP Phil died. It’s like one of
those fucking reality shows where the loser thinks he has a shot because the guy
in the lead pulled a muscle and backed out of the race. Shortus is actively
competing with me to be the man of this house and that’s not what I’m doing. I
love you. I miss being inside of you and I am your boyfriend but he’s a lonely
CrossBore, a real patriarchal sexist who acts like you need us menfolk and what
bullshit, Mary Kay. You don’t need men. You need me.
I pull The North Water out of my bag and set it on the table. “Almost forgot,”
I say to you, not him. “This is that book I was telling you about.”
In other words, GET OUT, SHORTUS, and he huffs. “Jeez, Joe, I don’t think
the woman can read right now. We’re still reeling, ya know?”
He didn’t even like your husband but I can’t fight with him because he’s your
friend and if he wasn’t here, we would be talking about Ian McGuire, but he is
here so you just smile at the book—Thanks, Joe—and then you’re on your feet,
dealing with the casserole. This is a critical time for us. You’re processing so
many emotions and we need to get Closer and I’m not stupid, Mary Kay. I know
you want a buffer. That’s why you let Shortus come over and have an open-door
policy for the semi-Melandas who “pop by” with casseroles—No one likes that
shit when they’re alive, why would they want it after someone died?—and
Shortus jumps up and pulls a chair out for you.
“Young lady, I insist that you take a load off and sit.”
He is the patriarchy and I want to smash him and where is RIP Melanda
when you need her? You don’t want to sit. You shovel lasagna onto his plate and
he passes the plate to me. “That’s way too much for me, MK. Let’s give this to
the bookworm, see if he can’t get some meat on those bones!”
You like my body just the way it is and Nomi hesitates in the hallway.
“What’s that smell?”
“Casserole,” you say. “You want some?”
She groans. “I’m going to Seattle.”
“Nomi…”
“I wanna see Uncle Don and Aunt Peg.”
I met Don and Peg at the wake. They’re Nomi’s surrogate ex-hippie
grandparents and they own a guitar store and you told me about them the day
we walked to the diner, the day you almost told me about Phil. You pick at your
lip. “But honey, you’ve been over there a lot.
Nomi is unmoved. “So?”
“So maybe you could hang out here… with us.”
Nomi grabs at the straps on her backpack. “Are they sick of me or
something?”
“Nomi, no, I just think it might be nice for you to be at home a little more.”
“Mom,” she says, and we’re all thinking the same thing right now. That the
rat died in this house. That Nomi found the rat.
You hug your Meerkat and Shortus scoops a heap of lasagna that’s actually
bigger than my portion and you walk Nomi to the door and he chews on the
lasagna with his mouth wide open, like a bachelor, like a pig, and you’ll never
know that he ate more than me and now you’re outside. There’s another fucking
Friend popping by and I don’t blame Nomi for jumping on that ferry every day.
You come back glum, holding a cheesecake.
“MK,” Seamus says. “Do you do that tracking thing on E’s phone?”
You dig into the cheesecake, right into the center. We haven’t had sex since
Fort Ward and you’re going crazy, too. “Huh?”
“You know,” he says. “Just so you can know where she is.”
You dig your fork into the cheesecake and that’s my girl. “I don’t stalk my
daughter, Seamus, if that’s what you mean.”
“Well, you can never be too careful. Do you know what she’s up to? Do you
even know that she’s in Seattle?”
Do it, Shortus! Piss her off with your Father Knows Best passive aggression.
You are seething. “Honestly, Seamus, if there’s one thing we did right, it’s
Nomi. She’s always liked to get away and spend a night or two with Peggy and
Don.”
He runs his paws over his Cooley Hardware shirt and adjusts his Cooley
Hardware hat and how was I ever “friends” with this guy? “I’m just trying to
help, MK. My shop’s covered. I got a workout in this morning… so it’s no skin
off my back if you want me to see where she’s at.”
You just lost your husband and he makes it all about him as if he’s the saint
and you pat his arm. “I appreciate it, but we’re fine.”
I might spit up my lasagna and he pats your arm back. “I know you are, MK.”
“Honestly, I don’t blame her for getting away. It’s been like Grand Central in
here and the memories…”
And it really is Grand Fucking Central because there’s a dog barking and
another intruder. You jump out of your chair to greet the latest Friend and lo
and behold it’s the fecal-eyed monster mommy. Finally, we are properly
introduced and her hand is a dead fish and her yellow Lab still loves me and see
that, Mary Kay? Dogs know good people.
Fecal-Eyed Nancy is fresh from a hike and she can’t stay long and you offer
her cheesecake and she makes a face, as if you have cooties, as if the widow
doesn’t have a right to stick a fork in her own cheesecake.
Fecal Eyes repeats herself—We just popped by, I can’t stay—and you clear a
chair for her and she sits. “Should I ask or should I leave it alone?”
The dog rests her head on my lap. I pet her and you sigh. “I haven’t heard
from her,” you say. “But like I told you, we had a falling-out.”
Shortus turns his Cooley Hardware hat backwards. “Oh man,” he says. “I
didn’t know how to tell ya.”
All eyes on Shortus, just like he wants, except for the dog, who only has eyes
for me. You sip your coffee. “Just say it. Have you talked to her?”
“Yes,” he says. “Melanda called me a few days ago.”
Fecal Eyes balks and you balk too and no she fucking didn’t. She’s dead.
There are rumors about her because this is an island and even at the wake, I
heard a couple people whispering that Melanda had an affair with a student but I
don’t care about that. Melanda is dead and dead women don’t talk on the
phone. Alas, Seamus wants attention, he wants to feel special, and pretending to
be a conduit to your friend Melanda is one way to get it.
Fecal Eyes picks at the cheesecake and this is what she came for: gossip.
“Unbelievable.”
Shortus scratches the logo on his shirt. “She asked me to tell you and Nomi
that she sends her love.”
You snort and do a good impression of her. “How nice.”
“I know,” he says. “She would have come back, but you know how it is.
Everyone’s talking about her ‘inappropriate behavior’ with that kid at school…
She didn’t want to steal the spotlight.”
Fecal Eyes picks up your fork, not afraid of cooties anymore. “So it is true.
That woman slept with a student. I knew it, and I’m sorry, but I can’t really say
I’m surprised.”
Thank God for the fecal-eyed dog or I might throw the cheesecake at the
fucking wall.
Finally Fecal Eyes is on the move—You guys, I just have so much to dooo—and
Shortus looks at his phone and lets out a big sigh. “Rats,” he says. “Actually, I
can’t go to Seattle even if you wanted me to go. The girls need me at the store.”
I almost feel bad for him as you shove him out the door, the way he had to
refer to his staff as the girls. It would be awful to be so intimidated by women, so
insecure that you have to make up gossip. He can’t even look me in the eye, he
just waves—Maybe a beer later?—and I nod and he manipulates you into one
more Thank you as you give him a casserole to take back to the shop, as if he
shouldn’t be the one thanking you.
And then he’s gone. You lock the door and come back to the table. “He means
well,” you say. “But he’s doing a 5K for Phil and he put up the banner. Did you
see it?”
Yes. “No.”
“Hang on,” you say. You pick up your phone and dial. You bite your lips as it
rings and then your shoulders drop. “Oh, Peg, I’m glad I caught you… Nomi’s on
her way there… Oh, she is? Oh good. Okay, well, I wanna thank you guys… I
know, but I still want to thank you… Okay, sounds good, thank you, Peg. Bless
you, Peg.”
I care and I ask the right question. “Nomi get there okay?”
You nod. “She called them from the ferry…” Your mom duties are fulfilled,
and right now, you just want to bitch about Shortus. “So that banner… Seamus
plastered the Narcotics Anonymous logo on it in this great big can’t-miss-it font
and it really rubs me the wrong way, as if that was all there was to Phil. And
Nancy…” Fecal Eyes. “She means well, but her in-laws do everything for her and
Phil’s parents… they haven’t even called since they went back to Florida… Tell
me to stop.”
“No. Let it out.”
You sip your coffee. “I don’t want to trash everyone I know. It’s not them, it
really isn’t. I’m not even mad that Melanda didn’t call or anything. When it’s
over, it’s over.” You sigh. “I think I’m just peopled out.”
My heart is racing and it’s just the two of us and I throw out my line to you,
my bait. “Look, I get the whole peopled-out thing and any time you want me to
leave…”
Your eyes suckle mine, kittens to the teat. “No,” you say. “I want you to stay.”
I do what you want. I stay. But I can’t make a move. You’re in mourning. I
have been cautious. Respectful. No mention of Fort Ward. No Red Bed talk. I
know that you did love him. I know that you did hate him. I know that
permanent separation is shocking and I know that the guilt is eating you alive
and I know you need to let it out.
I stroke your hair and I let you cry. I let you be. I do what none of your
Friends let you do. I support you quietly, wholly, and so you are able to cry
loudly, wholly, and when your phone rings—it does that too much—you see that
it’s your dad and you tell me that you should probably take it but you don’t have
it in you. He feels so bad about missing the funeral but he had to miss it. He had
back surgery. You send him to voicemail and that’s my cue, Mary Kay. I kiss
your hand. “Come on,” I say. “Let’s go upstairs.”
We did it. We made love in your marriage bed and we’ve been in your room for
the bulk of the past twenty-four hours. It’s been fun. You worry about my cats
and I tell you about the automatic feeders that dispense food and you tell me
how caring I am, how responsible, and this is how you heal. This is how you learn
to love me out loud, without feeling guilty about it.
You pull the duvet over our heads and I am the man of your dreams,
repeatedly offering to go, and you are the woman of my dreams, bringing my
hand to your legs, to your Murakami. We break the laws of physics and travel
through time and slip into our future and I hold you knowing that I will hold
you forever, that this is our sneak peek at Forever.
I kiss your foxy hair, tendrils all over my bare chest. “Do you want coffee?”
You run your hand through my hair and sigh. “Mind reader, Joe. Truly.”
RIP Phil never did nice things for you. No breakfast in bed, not even a
fucking cup of coffee. But then you glance at one of his trash bags and you’re
crying again, guilty. “I’m the worst woman in the world, if anyone knew you
were here… We can’t jump into this. You know you can’t be here when Nomi
gets back.”
“I know.” I kiss your head, the most patient man alive. “You want me to take
some of these bags down?”
You pull away. “Whoa, slow down there.” You pull the covers over the part of
your shoulder, the skin that I just kissed. “Way way way too soon.”
“I’m sorry, I was only trying to help.”
You bite your lip. You won’t let the past wreck our future. “I know, but right
now I really just want coffee. And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to jump all over you.”
I kiss the top of your head. “Don’t worry about me.”
I put on pants and a shirt—the Meerkat really could come back at any time—
and bound down the stairs and I can’t fucking wait for you to get rid of this
house, this albatross. You’re jumpy because you’re here. In your head, this house
belongs to your dead husband. And I get it. Everything will be better when we
get you out of this place, when my house becomes our house. I can already see us
on the sofa, watching our cats preen under the Christmas lights that will be up
all year, on at all hours. I love you, Mary Kay, and I open the freezer of
casseroles we’ll never eat because these casseroles are like Phil’s trash bags, like
this house. They also need to go.
I find the fucking coffee—finally—and close the door and flinch.
There’s a man standing there, staring at me as if I’m the intruder and did
Oliver send him? His face is familiar but he’s too old to be Oliver’s brother and
he’s wearing a Rolex so he’s not a cop.
He breaks the silence. “Who the fuck are you?”
I turn that shit around. “Who the fuck are you? And how did you get in
here?”
He clocks the sink full of dirty dishes. “I’m Phil’s brother. I have a key,” he
says. Blithe. Cold. “And I guess you do too, huh?”
33
This no-show, middling life coach starts washing your dishes like he owns this
place, like casserole dishes don’t need to soak, and he’s a straitlaced version of
Phil and I want him gone—we don’t need this right now—and I hear you
upstairs. You’re scrambling into your clothes and washing your face and now
you bound down the stairs. You smell of soap. You washed me off.
“Ivan,” you say, breezing right by me, putting your arms around Phil Part
Two. “You’re here.”
You should hate him—he skipped the fucking funeral—but you don’t hate
him. You’re obsequious. You thank him for doing the dishes as if they aren’t still
scabbed and you fawn on him for pouring dish soap into the compartment in
the scrub brush—oh, please—and you treat him like a human gadget. Like he’s
Mr. Fucking Fix-It. We have the iPhone, the iPad, and now we have the
motherfuckering iMan.
Yes, your brother-in-law Ivan is a textbook Ivan—entitled, arrogant, starched
on the bottom and wrinkled T-shirt on top—and he’s the missing piece of the
puzzle, the shark inside Phil’s shark. Better nose. Smarter. Colder. He’s only Phil’s
half brother—they share a mother—and we should be talking about Phil, but it
takes eleven seconds or so for Ivan to announce that he’s been taking things to the
next level with his “life-coaching business.” It sounds like bullshit and you’re busy
doting on him so I google him and yes. Okay. Ivan’s getting some press and he’s
“trending”—that word needs to die—but anyone can see that his entire “career”
is driven by his desire to be a rock star like his brother. Can you stop salivating
over this fucker and remember the facts? He showed up after your husband’s
funeral—what a monster—and a life coach should have compassion, not to
mention a fucking shirt with some buttons.
But look at you, still being so nice to him! The two of you are catching up and
I’m in a chair in the corner of your kitchen reading about Ivan and the mental
health situation in the Separated States of America is bad because of people like
him. He followed up his BA with a PhD—he’s a doctor but he couldn’t save a life
on a plane—and he made his fortune by greasing the wheels for big, bad
pharma. And what does he do with all that extra money? Does he start a
nonprofit? Does he build an incubator to ensure that the future is female? Nope.
He builds a website—well, he pays someone to build it—and declares himself a
life coach. I watch a short closed-captioned video of him “presenting” his
“philosophy.”
You took the first step. You’re here. I’m here to help you take the next step. Ready,
Ladies? Because I’m about to blow your mind. (A long dramatic stare.) Don’t trust
your feelings. (Another long, even more dramatic stare.) Your whole life you’ve been
told that you have feelings. What if the people who told you that you’re emotional had
told you that you’re smart? (He puts on a baseball cap that reads THINKING CAP
and ugh, he made merch.) Welcome to a new world where you don’t trust your
feelings. You see them for what they are: Cobwebs. Quicksand. Clutter. I’m here to make
you think.
No wonder there are so few views and yet look at you right now, pouring
vinegar into your coffeemaker because he said to do it. Like his dead brother, he
brings out the worst in you and I dislike the fucking video to focus on the show
in here. He has an excuse for everything.
Why wasn’t he at the funeral? I had twelve hundred clients with flights booked,
hotels prepaid. I had to be there.
Nope! He paid to attend a seminar on social media branding for life coaches
and he did not have to be there.
Why wasn’t he here for wake week? For the casserole parade? I had a sit-down
with GQ in New York. I begged my agent to let me do a phoner, but they wanted the
whole shebang, a photo shoot, the X-factor when I walk into the lobby of the Four
Seasons, all that good stuff.
The story was for GQ dot com and the story is only online and sorry, Ivan, but
you didn’t have a sit-down. It’s a piece about CEOs with “second acts”—Ivan
hired a publicist after his brother died and that publicist used RIP Phil
DiFuckingMarco to get Ivan some press. I am a good guy and Ivan is a bad guy,
a fake-it-till-you-make-it motherfucker who uses words like shebang. And again
I say it: WHAT KIND OF A LIFE COACH SKIPS HIS BROTHER’S
FUNERAL?
He looks down at the coffee you hand to him. He looks down at you. “You
better not be beating yourself up for what happened, Emmy. You know it’s not
your fault, right? You know there’s nothing you could have done.”
I don’t have a PhD in Psychology but this is projecting and you are fawning—
Thank you for all those flowers, Ivan, they really did make the funeral—and I butt in.
“What a good brother,” I say. “That’s generous, considering you couldn’t be
there.”
“Well, they’re half brothers,” you say. “And Ivan’s so busy in Denver…”
He claps his hands and he almost hits your nose. “Stop that, Em. There is no
half or whole. He was my baby brother. End of story.” His phone buzzes. He
smiles and walks to the front door and you and I follow, like sheep.
Nomi is on the street, running faster than I’ve ever seen her move.
You are puzzled. “She said she was gonna stay in Seattle.”
He is smug. “I told her I was here.”
That selfish bastard pulled Nomi away from people who actually love her
and she hugs him and he says she looks so grown-up and I don’t like his Rolex,
sliding around his wrist so we can’t forget it’s there. “All right,” he says. “Where
are we headed in the fall?”
Ivan’s got his arm around Nomi and they’re walking into the house and do I
stay? Do I go? You wave at me—come on—so I follow you but this is all wrong.
I’m more in tune with this family than this Ivan Come Lately but he’s the one
Nomi is excitedly telling about NYU.
“You’re going to love New York,” I butt in.
We’re all back in the kitchen and there’s an awkward silence.
Ivan looks at you, not me. “Sorry, MK… who is this guy?”
You rub your collarbone the way you do when a Mothball asks for help with
a fucking e-card and Nomi answers the question. “Joe’s a volunteer at the library.
And he’s from New York, so of course he’s biased about NYU.” She tears at a
loaf of bread and laughs. “Also he has three cats.”
I don’t need Ivan to know about our cats and I was a mentor to Nomi. I
listened to her talk about books. I helped her discover how rewarding it is to
help old people and this is how she repays me? You lighten the mood by pouring
coffee and there are three of you and one of me and I’m not even allowed to be
mad that you didn’t tell Ivan I’m your boyfriend because oh that’s right.
Our love is a secret. Nomi doesn’t know either. She thinks I’m a loser like
Shortus.
You open the freezer and retrieve a casserole and Ivan claps his hands again
and you and the Meerkat freeze up like this is a fucking improv class and he is
your teacher. “Rule One,” he says. “Those casseroles go in the trash. That food is
something that other people needed to provide in order to express their
condolences. But that food is not for you to eat, girls.” Girls and he’s just another
insecure prick, a tall fucking Shortus. “Rule Two,” he says, on his feet now,
rolling up those sleeves like he’s about to manhandle a baby at a political
convention. “Same logic applies to Phil’s things.”
“Ivan,” I say. “You don’t want to go there.”
You don’t look at me. Your eyes are glued to him and he puts his hands on
your shoulders. “Emmy, I know you… Trust me when I tell you that death is a
part of life. We are animals and we have to move forward. Your feelings are
intense. But feelings aren’t real.He points at his head and I wish his finger was
a gun. “We have to use our heads to protect us from the spontaneous, reactionary
urges of our hearts.”
The word is reactive and he’s talking about me, Mary Kay. He may as well
pick me up and shove me in one of RIP Phil’s fucking trash bags and he is
wrong. Your feelings for me are not a reaction to that dead rat—we’ve been
falling in love for months—but what do you do? You tell him that he’s right and
you are gonna gather Phil’s things today and I offered to get rid of those fucking
trash bags less than an hour ago and you bit my head off. You’re all hugging and
I may as well be back in the woods, on the trail, behind the rock. My chair
squeaks when I stand. “I think I should get going.”
You keep your head where I can’t see it, buried in Ivan’s chest, and your voice
is muffled—Thanks, Joe—and Ivan pats you both on the back and offers to walk
me out as if this is his house. You and the Meerkat hide in the kitchen and he
opens the front door before I can get my hand on the knob.
“Thanks for helping out around here…” His voice drops to a whisper. “But
you and I both know that a recently widowed woman needs time on her own.”
“Of course. I just came by to help her with some stuff around the house.”
He mad-dogs me and my fucking shirt is inside out and does he still smell
you on me? “Well,” he says. “That’s what I miss about this place so much, all that
generosity…”
I leave and there is nothing I can do because his presence doesn’t change
anything—our love is a secret, it’s too soon—but his presence changes
everything. No more lingering in the bed with me. No more working through
your grief the right way, behind closed doors, with me. Right now, you’re in that
house and you’re regressing at ninety miles an hour, putting on a proper widow
show for your dead husband’s no-show brother. You were Phil’s muse, and that
was a problem, but this is worse, Mary Kay. Now you’re the one onstage.
34
One day passes. No word from you. I buy Oliver a violin. Minka is taking
classes.
Another day passes. No word from you. I buy Oliver a fucking piano. Minka
didn’t like the violin.
Another day passes. No word from you. I bite Oliver’s head off when he calls
and he laughs. “I know,” he says. “But there’s this Casio on 1stdibs. It’s super
eighties, my friend. You don’t have to learn how to play it. It’s intuitive… or sort
of intuitive? Whatever it is, we want it.”
I buy Oliver his non-intuitive Casio—am I ever going to see you again?—and
my doorbell rings. Yes! You! I run to the door and I open the door and no. Ivan.
I wish I wasn’t in sweatpants and I wish Riffic was a fucking Rottweiler.
Ivan laughs at my cats. “Sorry to surprise you.”
“No worries. Did you want to come in?” So I can lock you in my Whisper Room?
“Actually,” he says. “Nomi mentioned that you live here…” Nomi. Not you.
“And I know how helpful you were last week…” Someone had to be, you prick. “I
wanted to invite you over for supper tonight. It’s the least we can do to repay
you for being such a good neighbor.”
The word is boyfriend, you asshole, and he better not tell you about all the cat
hair on my sweatpants. “I’m always happy to help and that sounds great, but
unnecessary. I don’t want to intrude.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He tells me he’ll see me at six and I start to close the
door and he snaps his fingers. “Oh, one more thing,” he says. “Feel free to bring
your partner, if you have one…”
I hate the word partner and I picture Rachael Ray riding one of her knives
into the center of his chest and I smile. “Thanks,” I say. “But it’s just me.”
A couple hours later you call me and you are hiding in the garage,
whispering, as if you’re the guest in his house. You are so sorry for all the radio
silence and you say it’s so complicated. “See, Ivan and Phil didn’t have the best
relationship and I feel like you got stuck in the middle of some ancient history.”
“Mary Kay, I’m gonna say what I always say. Don’t worry about me. Really.”
You blow me a kiss but I hear him in your voice and it’s so much better in
my house, no fucking Ivans clogging the pipes. I go down to my Whisper Room
to get ready for supper (a.k.a. read up on Uncle Ivan) and here’s my conclusion,
Mary Kay.
He isn’t a life coach. He’s an aspiring cult leader.
He claps and women stop talking and women pay him for his authoritative
“coaching.” The man is the real fake deal. But let’s be honest, Mary Kay. He’s a
bad guy, and this is the problem with the fucking Internet. Thanks to his
publicist, women are watching his videos and every hour he has more followers
and “converts” than he did the hour before. It doesn’t hurt that he’s not a bad-
looking guy who enforces a one-strike rule—that’s so cult—and stares into the
camera and tells women what they want to hear, what we all want to hear: You
deserve better.
No, Ivan. Most people are pretty shitty and they don’t deserve better and I
wish RIP Phil would come back from the dead so that I could tell him that I get
it, man. If this was my brother—God help me—even half brother, I would’ve
been popping pills and singing about sharks, too.
Ivan’s also an Instagram junkie—women who love guys like Ivan also love
Instagram—and here’s a brand-new post, a photo of a vintage BMW in his
parents’ garage at their summer home in Manzanita. The caption is sexist,
directed at you: Good to be home, baby. Missed you.
You are not a car and he went to Yale and is there anything worse than a
forty-nine-year-old man still identifying by the college that accepted him before
he could legally buy beer? Ivan isn’t famous-famous (yet). He’s not John Fucking
Stamos. Three years ago, he was flying from one self-made bubble to another,
speaking to “crowds”—trick photography—of women who then swarmed him in
the lobby bars of various Marriotts all over the country. And this year, even
before your husband died, Ivan has hit his fucking stride and the lie is coming
true.
A guy couldn’t so easily become an Ivan twenty years ago—fuck you,
Internet; fuck you, images—and I put on your favorite black sweater and I can
do this. Your brother-in-law didn’t invent the snake oil game and I can make
nice with him.
And if not I can… well, no, I can’t.
I turn the corner on the trail and Ivan is on your deck, dumping charcoal
into the grill. I hoist my bottle of Bainbridge vodka and he waves his tongs,
longer than my bottle, and he stares at my vodka. “Wow,” he says. “Hard stuff on
a school night. Yikes. You don’t see a lot of the hard stuff in wine country.”
We’re not in wine country and you like vodka and it says BAINBRIDGE on the
bottle. “I don’t drink it. It’s like they say, perfume going in, sewage going out.”
It takes a lot for me to punch someone with an actually, but I do it now.
“Actually, Ivan, that’s what they say that about champagne. Not vodka.”
He doesn’t cop to being wrong even though he was wrong and he sighs.
“When did you say you moved here?”
“I didn’t.” Pause for dramatic effect. “A few months ago.”
He wants to ask more but here you come in a Red Bed red sundress and I
shrug, affable houseguest, changing the subject, and you keep your distance
from me but Ivan watches, assessing our body language like the unlicensed
pervert that he is. You pour wine and Nomi puts a cheese board in the middle
of the table and Ivan starts telling some long, boring you-had-to-be-there story
about the time you and him and your rat had an olive-eating contest and Ivan
nods at me. “Go ahead, Joe. Have an olive.”
This isn’t your style. I’ve watched your sitcom and I know you. You’re not a
foodie. You binge on Tostitos in bed and you let the frost bite your salmon and
I pick up a piece of white cheese. “This is quite a charcuterie board.”
“Nicely done,” he says, clapping like this is NA. “A lot of people can’t
pronounce that word…” As if it’s surprising that I can. “Do you not like olives,
Joe?”
I hate olives, but I pop one in my mouth—I belong with you—and my body
recoils and you’re all laughing at me. He hands me a napkin. “Just spit it out.
You do you, Joe.”
You bite your lip and sip more wine and Nomi opens her Columbine and she’s
telling Uncle Ivan about the book, and Ivan knows Dylan Klebold’s mother, he
met her at a publishing lunch at a restaurant and he loves the resy app—Resy isn’t
a word, you prick—and he shows us an email confirmation that begins with
empty validation: You’re popular.
I know you’re just as disgusted as me and I laugh. “Imagine taking that
personally.”
You don’t laugh—you can’t, our love is a secret—and Ivan puts his phone
away and Nomi jumps out of her chair—she has to pee and she says so, the way
girls her age do—and now it’s just us. Adults. “So,” Ivan says, as if he’s your
father and I want to take you to the prom. “Emmy tells me you’re a volunteer?”
He was too happy to use the word volunteer, so I tell him about my book
business and he’s Tom Brokaw and I’m the terrorist and he slaps me on the
back. “Don’t be so self-conscious, guy.”
I’m not self-conscious but I remain calm. He says he was thinking about
writing a book—aren’t we all, Ivan—but opted to go with a website instead. Yes,
Ivan, because you could never write a fucking book and you are drinking too much,
too fast, and you praise the olives and ask where he got them—YOU DON’T
FUCKING CARE ABOUT OLIVES AND YOU DON’T EVEN LIKE THEM—
and you wash down those pungent things with wine.
“Sorry,” you say. “I get these waves… I can’t believe Phil is gone.”
That’s more like it, Mary Kay. You don’t need to please this man and
compliment his fucking cheese board. You just lost your husband.
He nods. “There are gonna be waves, Emmy. Ride them. Stay strong.”
He says this like it’s a grand fucking insight and he flashes his put-me-on-TV
eyes at me again. “So, Joe, what’s your take on all this?”
I don’t have a hot take on your life because you’re a human, not an issue. “I
think it’s been a really rough couple of weeks on the family…”
Meaning the family that Ivan is not a fucking part of, and Nomi opens the
screen door and looks around the table. “Wait,” she says. “Mom, did you tell
him?”
You rub your forehead. “Nomi…”
“Uncle Ivan, you know Mom and Dad were gonna get divorced, right?”
Ivan frowns. “No? Emmy, is this true?”
You cough. “Nomi, it’s a little more complicated than that. Let’s not get into
it, okay?”
“Why?” she says. “I mean he was sleeping on the couch for like two weeks,
right?”
I should have stayed home and you slam a plate and march into the house
and order Nomi to follow you and Ivan motions for me to follow him. “Joe, do
you eat lamb?”
I shake my head no and he wants to know if it’s for political reasons and I
laugh him off. “I just don’t like the taste.”
He lays his lamb shanks on the grill and inside, you and the Meerkat are
screaming and I can only hear bits—she says you broke his heart, you say he
wanted to leave you—and Ivan closes the lid on the grill.
“So,” he says. “You never met my brother, is that right?”
I nod. He opens the lid of the grill and flips a helpless lamb and I want to flip
him. “That’s a shame,” he says. “He wasn’t perfect… but he was a good guy. Emmy
and Nomi, they were everything to him…” Not true. “Joe,” he says. “I don’t want
to pry…” Liar. “But what exactly is your relationship with Mary Kay?”
“Ivan, look, I think we got off on the wrong foot. I live around the corner,
things were bad… you can imagine how bad, Nomi finding him… Mary Kay just
reeling.
A normal person would let the guilt bomb hit him but Ivan just flips his
shanks. “It must be hard for you right now… your girlfriend feeling so guilty
about cheating on her husband…”
“Whoa, Ivan. That’s not what’s going on.”
“Relax,” he says. “I’m not here to judge. I see the guilt eating you alive…”
I never said I felt guilty and again he flips a little chunk of dead lamb and I
miss the silence of our lambs and I can’t tell if you and Nomi are fighting or
making up and he calls me your latest adoptee, another orphan from the library, and
I am not your project and we take care of each other and you are crying and the
Meerkat is crying and I want to go inside and help you but I can’t. Ivan flings
innocent dead lamb parts onto a platter. He is the shark inside Phil’s shark
circling, finding someone new, me. “I’m gonna make this easy,” he says with a
smile. “We’re gonna eat lamb. You don’t like lamb. Why don’t you call it a
night?”
Two days later, and I still haven’t heard from you.
My cats are all over me. They feel my pain and I feel your pain too. You’re in
mourning. You and Nomi need to heal and our love is a secret and my hatred of
Ivan is a secret—I wouldn’t burden you with my opinions right now—but time
is passing. You are nesting with another man and I’m alone. Oliver went back to
L.A. to see Minka and he’s bugging me about David LaChapelle’s Jesus Is My
Homeboy, which costs thirty-five thousand dollars. I buy it—ouch—and he says
he’ll see me on Menopause Island soon, but when will I see you?
Ivan is staying in your house and luring you into his cult and I can’t blame
you for it because you lost your fucking husband and your daughter discovered
her own father on the floor.
Dead.
You are the two most vulnerable women in the world and men like Ivan…
this is what they do. They hunt for women like you. Nomi shares too many
pictures of Denver, the city that Ivan calls home, and you don’t call me. You just
send me questions via text and I hear Ivan’s voice in your voice.
You, infected by Ivan: Question. How did you get into rare books?
Me: I worked in a bookstore in New York. My mentor was amazing. It takes years to
build contacts and learn how to read a book, to spot a fake. My eyes are permanently
tired!
You say nothing. You don’t laugh at my joke. But read between the lines,
Mary Kay. I worked for my position in this world. I didn’t buy my way in like
some people.
You, infected by Ivan: Question. How come you don’t have a website?
I placate you—My business is purely organic, people tell people about me—and you
are turning cold on me—Thanks—and you’re sharing photographs of Ivan’s
homemade duck-fat fries and your mind is turning to duck fat and of course he
knows how to cook, Mary Kay. All sleazy bastards learn a few dishes to seem
like husband material and you are not that woman who lives online but here you
are on Instagram, defiling your non-brand brand and talking about… him.
You’re not going crazy. You’re going sane. @IvanKing #Wordsof Wisdom
You’re not going sane. You’re going crazy. Nomi is too:
Denver here I come! #GoingSane
That’s a big decision—she belongs in New York—and I should not find out
about big decisions in our family-in-the-making on Instagram.
Oliver interrupts me with a DM: Instagram is bad for your mental health. FYI.
He shouldn’t know that I’m online but he hacked my account and changed
my settings and I change my password—fuck you, Oliver—and I let two hours
pass, as if I’m some fucking child with overbearing paranoid parents.
I go back on Instagram and Ivan’s been busy. There’s a picture of the three of
you in brand-new matching baseball caps on the ferry to Seattle.
Bye-bye, feeling caps. Hello, thinking caps. #FamilyisEverything
I grab my hat—fuck you, Ivan—and head out my door. Family is everything,
Mary Kay. But he’s not your family. I am. And it’s time I helped you remember
that.
35
I walk to Pegasus. It’s a free country, it’s a small island, so I keep strolling, as
people do sometimes. I turn onto your street and then into your yard—we’re
Friends, we pop by—and I enter through the side door—you didn’t lock it, tsk-tsk
and I toss my coffee cup into your recycling bin with all the other Pegasus
cups and I walk upstairs and go into your bedroom. I take a deep breath. Okay.
This is good news. You’re not sleeping with Ivan. I would smell him.
But there’s something you’re not telling me and I pick up one of your trash
bags. My phone buzzes and it’s an electric shock to my nervous system—leave
me alone, Oliver—but it’s not Oliver. It’s fucking Shortus—wanna go for a run?—
and no, you asshole, I don’t want to go for a run. I tell him I already went for a
run today and he calls me a pussy and I shove my phone back into my pocket
and pick up a trash bag. This one isn’t soft like the others because this one is full
of journals. It’s time for me to learn about what you really think of Ivan and I lie
on your bed. There are so fucking many of them and it’s mostly you beating
yourself up about not being a good mother, not being a good wife, wishing
Melanda would find someone, wishing you had left when you had the chance. I
can’t sit here all day and you’re a fox, you’re wily, so I pick up a yellowing
notepad of grocery lists and errands. My heart is beating. I turn the pages. And
sure enough, twenty-three pages into your errand book, I find the real diary, the
one that doesn’t have a fucking sunset on the cover. The one where you use a
pencil instead of a pen.
-Nomi ballet slippers?
-Phil therapist or couples therapist
-dry cleaning
Oh god I am going to hell and it will be an olive garden only not a restaurant.
Just olives. Something shifted. He gave me an olive… and I slept with him. Am I a
monster? I just feel so drawn to him and he’s so together and oh God I am a
monster. I want him. But you can’t do this in life. You can’t leave your husband
for his brother but they’re half brothers and oh god what is wrong with me? I
want olives. I want Ivan.
-yams, salmon, chips, diet coke
Nothing was wrong with you, Mary Kay. You were young, married to an
unstable man.
Two days later, you used a sharper pencil, and my eyes thank you for that.
-return ballet slippers
-DRY CLEANING
-pickles, frozen pizza, that mac and cheese thing that Nomi likes
Well that’s that. Big news! I’m not good enough for Ivan. HAHA shock of the
century right? Yep I threw myself at him, so smart, so smart MK! And he told me
that it could never work out and yep, go to the head of the class you whore. Well
done. And now… if Phil ever found out… well, good job, me. I sure can pick ’em.
-haircut?
My heart hurts for RIP Phil and I close your secret diary. So this is why Ivan
has a hold over you. You slept with him. But it doesn’t matter what you did. You
were young. We all were once upon a time.
I leave your bed and I open your computer—it’s old and big and the
password is predictable—LADYMARYKAY—and I open your email. On the
fourth day of every month for the last several years, you have written to him:
Dear Ivan,
Someday we will pay you back. I know how that sounds. But I mean it.
Love,
MK
And on the fifth day of every month, Ivan replies to you:
Dear Mary Kay,
We’re family. I’m happy to help.
Love, Ivan
I dive into the financial mess of your life and Phil blew his royalties and his
trust fund—he didn’t like to work—but Ivan was smart. Straight edge. Their
parents cut them both off and you and your rat were regulars at the Bank of
Ivan and the house really isn’t yours. It’s his name on the mortgage.
Your house smells like dead lilies and Ivan’s sweat and my phone buzzes and
I want it to be you but it’s Oliver: Watching you, my friend. Not crazy about what I
see…
Days pass and you get worse and you really are in a cult. I go to Pegasus early in
the morning and I wait for you—I am reading The Girls and I can’t wait to say
the word CULT to you—and eventually you enter the coffee shop. But you
aren’t happy to see me.
“Joe, I’m in kind of a rush.”
I close my book. “I get it,” I say. “But did you ever read this?”
You shake your head no and you don’t ask about me or my fucking cats and
it’s like you don’t even hear the Bob Dylan playing in the background. You just
point at the counter. “I really do have to go… I know you probably want to talk
but I just…”
“I get it.”
“We have company and it’s crazy at home.”
That’s the right word, Mary Kay: crazy.
“Oh hey,” I said. “Superquick… how’s Nomi? I just hope she’s getting through
this okay. It’s a rough go those first few weeks…”
I already know that Nomi is in trouble. She told everyone on Instagram that
she’s taking a fucking gap year and putting NYU on hold to intern for Uncle Ivan in
Denver. The hashtag made me sick: #ListenToYourHead
But you don’t tell me about Nomi’s bad decision. You barely look me in the
eye. “That’s sweet of you,” you say. “And I promise, we’re good. Hanging in.
Everything is under control.”
Yes, Mary Kay. Ivan is controlling you and he’s controlling the Meerkat and
you buy three lattes—none for me—and you leave with a sexless wave—Bye, Joe!
and that shark is moving fast and the Meerkat is adrift. Technically, she’s an
“adult,” but she’s a young eighteen and she needs someone to tell her that you
don’t make life decisions when you’re in mourning. The iPhone killed romance
and turned us all into lazy, nasty stalkers and now Ivan the iMan is killing us.
Three days later, it’s like you’ve gone to the dark side. I really don’t exist to you. I
don’t go outside. Oliver’s so “worried” about me that he sent me a fucking
cheesecake via Postmates, as if one cheesecake makes up for the thousands of
dollars I’ve spent on him.
I’ve been playing “Hallelujah” on repeat, trying to hate you, trying to think of
you as the woman who fucked your husband right in front of me, a
semireformed brother fucker who didn’t catch on when her best friend was
pleasuring her husband. I’m trying to accept that something about those men
gets to you. Your rat dies and you immediately glom onto his brother. You have
been brainwashed and I know that. I do. But I can’t stop thinking about you. I
can’t stop loving you.
So I send you a text: hi
You send me a text: hi
I send you another text: is it bad if I say I miss you?
You don’t answer me and eleven long minutes go by—oh, fuck you, clock—
and I am the stupidest man on the planet and maybe I should kill your half
brother-in-law because a man as stupid as me deserves to rot in prison for being
stupid.
And then there is a knock on my door and it’s you.
“Hello.” You’re wearing a baggy dress I’ve never seen and it’s cult white.
“Hi,” I say. “Come on in.”
You enter in silence and you don’t notice the music and you don’t smile your
foxy smile and you don’t cry your foxy tears. You are dead-eyed. You’re here but
I don’t know who you are and you won’t sit on my Red Bed sofa and now your
lips are moving. I follow your gaze.
“Mary Kay, are you… are you counting the red stuff?”
“Well, it is a lot of red, Joe. Is this meant to turn your house into a Red Bed?”
Yes. “No, I just like red.”
You nod. You’re still in there and you know when I’m lying and you tell me
this says a lot about me and it does. But then you purse your lips. “You can’t
make the world red. This was really confrontational of you, Joe. And
overbearing.”
“Whoa,” I say. “Where is this coming from?”
You shrug. And I know where this is coming from. You listened to Ivan’s take
on us. “Look,” I say. “I know you’re going through hell, but come on. It’s me. I
love you.”
You close your eyes. “Don’t say that you love me, Joe. That’s just a physical
sensation. It’s just a feeling.”
I recognize that you are in a cult and it is not your fault. The cult showed up
on your doorstep and moved into your fucking house and you are in debt to the
leader of the cult. But you’re in there, somewhere, and I have to try and reach
you. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mary Kay, but how’s that Kool-Aid?”
“Excuse me?”
And off you go, defending that monster who’s just looking out for you and I
never should have brought him into this and you’re hiding from me by talking
about him. You tell me that you know I didn’t mean to take advantage of you
and I am on my feet.
“I didn’t take advantage of you, Mary Kay.”
“Oh no? You didn’t hang around my house knowing that I was weak, that my
husband just died? You didn’t pop by with toilet paper and wait for everyone to
leave and you didn’t prevent me from being alone so that I could take charge of
my feelings and put my thinking cap on? You didn’t do that? None of it?”
“Mary Kay…”
“Because the way I see it…” I as in Ivan and he is worse than RIP Steve Jobs,
hell-bent on owning the world’s most important pronoun, the one that makes
you you. “Well, Joe…” You never talk like this. “I did not come here to fight with
you…” Yes you did. “I did not come here to explain myself to you…” Yes you did.
“I came here to hold you accountable for your behavior, your behavior that was
very harmful to me, your behavior that, whether or not you intended it, did
drive me off course.”
The Whisper Room is right downstairs and you are in a cult and you’re not
eating enough—he’s starving you, it’s part of the brainwashing—and I want to
keep you, save you. I want to wrap my arms around you and you stand.
“I’m not obligated to listen to what you have to say to me because it’s not my
job to take care of you…” Yes it is. We take care of each other. “And yes, I have
feelings for you… but you can’t trust your feelings.”
“Mary Kay, do you hear yourself? This isn’t you. This is him.
“And you don’t like him.”
I won’t lie to you and I can’t lie to you so I don’t say a word. You look down
at your white cult dress. “Well,” you say. “I will leave you to process your
emotions and do for you what you did not do for me. I will give you the space to
feel your feelings about the dissolution of this relationship.”
“Mary Kay, what are you trying to say?”
I know damn well what you are trying to say but maybe if I force you to say
it, you will change your mind. “You know what I’m saying.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t.”
You ignore one of my cats when he marks you as his territory and you tense
up on me, on my cats, our cats. “It’s over, Joe.”
“So you want to break up with me.”
“No. People have to be in a serious relationship in order to break up…” We
were serious to me. We are serious to me. “I was in a fog…” You are in the fog
right now. “And Phil might be alive if you and I hadn’t been running around…”
You make it sound like I grew the fucking poppy seeds and you wipe away a tear
and the fog thickens. You shiver when I take a step toward you and your tear
ducts go into lockdown. “No,” you say. “It’s over.”
Ivan won your head. He reconfigured your heart. I can’t give up. I tell you
that it doesn’t have to be this way and I remind you of how long we’ve known
each other, how hard we worked to get here, and you huff. “Yeah,” you say, and
you’re not Ivan’s puppet and I wish you were but no, this is you, the woman I
know. “You said it, Joe. And we really did fuck up. But I don’t want to hash it
out with you.” You purse your lips. “And there’s no point…”
I step toward you and you step back. “I’m moving,” you say.
“You’re what?” No no no no no.
“We put the house on the market.”
NO NO NO NO NO. Your insanity is supposed to be temporary. “Mary Kay,
come on. Slow down a minute. You can’t tell me you want to move away. Not
with him.”
“I just did tell you.”
“Hang on a minute. This feels a little unfair, Mary Kay. I love you. You know
that. You said it.”
And now finally you do meet my eyes. “I told you, Joe. That day never
happened.”
That was the best day of my life—I have the Polaroids to prove it—and you
cut me off when I try to reason with you. “I’d appreciate it if you would respect
my feelings and stay away.” You take my doorknob in your hand. You squeeze.
“Goodbye, Joe. Good luck.”
You close my door—you don’t slam it—and I walk to the window and I wait
for you to look back—the woman always looks back at the one she loves—but
you don’t do it, Mary Kay. You don’t love me anymore.
36
It’s quiet in the Whisper Room and in the great tradition of so many authors on
this island, I open Microsoft Word and I open Chrome because the old adages
are true: Write what you know and know thy enemy, especially if you’re going
to write about him.
I open my mind—ouch—and watch a video of one of Ivan’s newest female
converts—possibly a paid actor, actually let’s go with probably—and she’s
wearing her thinking cap and she is energized. “Ivan should be the biggest life
coach on the planet,” she says. “He changed everything for me. No more pop
music, no more Air Supply when I’m PMSing, and no more sappy movies. Ivan
taught me to stop feeling my feelings and start leading with my mind.”
I dig up Ivan’s bio on his website and there he is with his wife and her kids—
second marriage—and her name is Alisa and she’s a mousy brunette who tends to
everything at home. She is rigid. She wears a sweater set. She’s from another time
and she’s on Facebook—of course—and she’s “busy” raising their sons… who are
away at college. None of these people showed up at Phil’s funeral and Ivan and
Alisa met in grad school—bite me—and the quote at the top of her profile
would make RIP Melanda feel sick: “Stop your feelings before they stop you.”—Ivan
King, my husband
Ivan really wanted his new career to happen, and at some point, an
intelligent woman must have gotten on his nerves and told him to back the fuck
off.
I google #MeToo Ivan King.
Nothing. Which makes sense. He’s only been officially selling his snake oil
for a couple years. But then, there are older videos, some of them from his early
days, when he didn’t know about bounce boards and lighting. Surely he made a
mistake at some point, and I’m not talking about technical shit.
I google gross things: Ivan King blow job. Ivan King affair. Ivan King rumor. Ivan
King harassment. But it’s the same every time. Ivan King decent. Ivan King loyal.
Ivan King ally.
There’s no way, Mary Kay. I remember my old life in L.A., fighting with RIP
Forty about our screenplays and the one good piece of advice he gave me—Trust
your gut, Old Sport. It’s all in there—and I do that now. I trust my gut and I know
I can be stubborn about technology. I hate the name. I hate the clear intention
to shrink our attention span even more. But I do it. I go on fucking TikTok.
This is the miracle of the creative process. Of inspiration. You. Because I love
you, I am in touch with all the narrows of my soul, my talent. I didn’t think
someone like you existed. You found me and I do exist and my instinct was right—
good job, gut—and I find Megan.
Megan isn’t very popular on TikTok—she doesn’t shoot her whole face, only
her mouth—but I like her for bucking the shallow, image-obsessed system. I like
Megan’s voice, too. She’s indignant. Brave. Rattled. It takes a few TikToks to tell
her whole story—San Francisco tech fucks, you can do better—but I listen to
the whole damn thing. And then I play her videos again and this time, I write it
all down:
This is pretty scary. My #MeToo isn’t famous but he isn’t not famous but that
doesn’t matter. What matters is what he did to me. The part of me that loves
Ivan King says that I’m acting with my feelings, not my brain, because that’s
how men kept women down for so long, by telling us that we feel too much. But I
do have feelings and I can’t hold it in anymore. I met Ivan King at his workshop.
He told me that I had true potential but that I lacked confidence. He told me he
could tell that I had never had an orgasm with a man and at the time it was true
and I told him that wasn’t true and he knew I was lying because if you know
Ivan, you know how he is. How he just KNOWS. He said that sex is an activity.
The single most important activity. He said that without good sex I would never
reach my true potential. He could tell I had never been in love. I cried a lot. He
said I wasn’t attractive because men have intuition too. They can tell when you
haven’t been loved correctly, when you’ve faked too many orgasms and blamed
yourself. So I did it. I took my clothes off. I know I did this myself. He didn’t hold
me down. He didn’t “make” me do anything. I put my “thinking cap” on and I
kept that hat on during sex. He abused his power. I know I can’t be the only
woman who got played. He makes it so hard to come forward. He makes us blame
ourselves for having feelings. But I am sick of pretending that I don’t. Because if
you ask me, no one has more “feelings” than Ivan King. If this happened to you,
please tell me. #MeToo is good, but it’s not perfect or Ivan King would be on the
way down, not on the way up. I saw him in GQ and well… I just had to speak
up.
My fingers are numb and my left eye is twitching and I wrote it once and I
doubled back to check for accuracy—as Megan’s megaphone amplifier, I owe it
to her to nail every word—and then I do what Megan should have done.
I dump Megan’s manifesto on Reddit, where people like to pay attention to
every word.
And now I wait.
We live in strange times—refresh, nothing—because for all the men who are
exposed, there are plenty of bad men who carry on in the shadows because they
know how to convince women that they’re emotionally responsible for whatever
the men did with their dicks—refresh, nothing—and I forgot about how good it
feels to tell the truth and help a wronged woman seek justice—RIP Melanda
would be so proud of me—and I refresh.
Nothing.
But I am patient. I believe Megan. I believe in her so much that it wouldn’t
surprise me if she called me right now to thank me for sharing her story. (I
linked the transcript to her TikTok. Unlike RIP Forty Quinn, I give credit
when credit is due.) Megan has dirty blond hair—refresh, nothing—and slouchy
shoulders and credit card debt from Ivan King—refresh, nothing—and I find
her other accounts and I learn about her overdue bills from personal trainers
and therapists and… grad school. Yes! She’s a grad student—sadly, snobs care
about shit like that—and she’s relatable, fiercely intelligent in the classroom,
but less confident when it comes to her personal life. She contacted Ivan
because she thought he could help make the pain go away and he made it worse
and she’s not alone and that’s why he should be canceled. I refresh.
Nothing.
I feed my cats—cats were made for moments of tension like this—and they
want to sleep but I get some yarn and fuck with them and they’re just like me.
They want that yarn so bad. And then they get it. And then they run because it’s
more fun to chase the yarn than it is to have the yarn.
I go back to my computer. Refresh. Nothing. Fuck you, Internet!
I walk to Blackbird and I order the toast my fecal-eyed neighbor likes so
much. I wait for the toast—come on #IBelieveMegan—and I go on Instagram and
the women in my life are a wreck. Love is trying to teach Forty to play golf—he’s
a child—and you are next-level insane, allowing Ivan to preach to a small group
of women at the library.
“Joe!”
That’s my toast and I get my toast and I eat my toast and I wipe my hands.
Calmly. Thoroughly. I pick up my phone. Refresh. Something.
But it’s not something good. A brainwashed user named ClaireSays has come
on here to attack Megan. Claire calls Megan a liar—the fucking nerve—and
Megan is not a liar. When someone says something you don’t like you can’t just
declare their voice illegitimate and Claire is racking up approval because people
love to hate. She accuses Megan of being paid off—fucking conspiracy theorist,
Claire—and she says Megan needs help. And then she contradicts herself and
says that Megan should be in prison for slander and WHICH THE FUCK IS IT,
CLAIRE? I want to jump into the screen and throttle Claire and put her in a
basement to teach her the danger of fake news but I can’t do that. And I don’t
even need to do that because what’s this?
It’s a user named Sandra2001 and Sandra says what I needed to hear: He did it
to #MeToo. I didn’t even know who Ivan was. A friend (witness) dragged me to his
“seminar” at a Marriott and there were so few of us that Ivan said drinks were on him.
He paid for the drinks. My friend had to go. He told me he had “literature” in his hotel
room. I said he could bring it to the lobby. He said that I was being unfair, treating him
like a predator. So we got in the elevator and he took his pants off and I kicked him and
got out on the 44th floor. That was ninety-one days ago today. I blamed myself. I got in
the elevator. But Ivan should go down. Thank you, Megan. #IBelieveMegan
#DethroneIvanKing Also, he sent me dick pics the day after. He said it was “fun.”
I stare at the screen and it might be the only time in my life that a hashtag
made me smile. Sandra wants justice and Sandra adds another comment.
Dear ClaireSays and all other women throwing shade. You’re not as bad as the men.
You’re worse.
Sandra wants a revolution. She wants to save other women from Ivan the
Predator and she wants it all to start right now.
#MeToo, Sandra, #MeFuckingToo.
37
The world moves fast on a story like Ivan King. There have been nineteen more
accusations and Ivan is now trending on Twitter. Seven hours and eight minutes
after #MeganIsSoBrave spoke her truth on Reddit, my phone rings. It’s you.
I follow the news, so I answer with empathy. “Mary Kay, are you all right?”
Ivan is screaming in the background—way to cave in to those emotions, Ivan
—and you are quivering. “Joe,” you say. “I had no idea.”
“Do you want me to come—”
“Yes,” you say, cutting me off. “Joe, please come over. Now.”
I grab my coat—Here I come to save your day—and I’m on your street and I
spot a For Sale sign planted in your front yard—not anymore!—and I don’t fight
the big fat smile that comes from deep inside.
I saved you from making a terrible mistake and if the noise in your house is
any indication—it is—you won’t be abandoning our home to join Ivan’s fucking
cult. Even on the edge of your property, I can hear him screaming. He’s on the
phone with what sounds like a lawyer—this is no job for a publicist—and I
knock once—polite and heroic—and you wave me in. Ivan is out of sight, in the
kitchen, and what a relief it is to be here, to see you, Mary Kay. You’re you
again, in black tights and a black skirt and a purple V-neck sweater. You touch
my arm and lean in. “He’s… going… crazy.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m here.”
The Meerkat is stretched out on the sofa with her security blanket—what’s
up, Columbine?—so I sit in RIP Phil’s chair while you join the Meerkat on the
sofa.
Ivan kicks your wall. “But that bitch is lying, Jerry! Do something to shut
these cunts up! They are gonna kill my brand!”
Ivan wanted to be in GQ and now he’s in GQ—the headline of the hot take
think piece made me happy: THE POWER IS OUT… BUT WAS IT EVER ON? Yep, Ivan is
a dark star now and his Wikipedia page is blistering: Ivan King—Middling “life
coach” and half brother of Sacriphil front man Phil DiMarco. King rose to infamy when
dozens of women came forward and outed the “coach” for destroying their lives. Ivan
still isn’t famous but he sure is infamous, and the next time he’s in a Marriott
lobby bar packed with women, they won’t be trying to get into bed with him.
They’ll be trying to kill him.
There’s more good news, Mary Kay. Ivan’s wife, Alisa, started a Twitter
account last night and her first tweet was a good one: #MeToo.
Ivan throws his phone at your wall and just misses a framed photo of you,
RIP Phil, and the Meerkat and you snap. “Ivan. That’s enough.”
“Right,” he snorts. “Because that’s you, Emmy, always looking out for your
family. Just calm the fuck down and let me think.
Megan was right, Mary Kay. Ivan is a fucking pig.
I must be patient. You’re a lot like Love Quinn, drawn to these bad men,
prone to enabling them even when they’re abusing you. You should have kicked
him out but instead you’re providing safe harbor, as he mouths off in front of
your daughter—that Megan came on to me—and he picks up an empty can and
tosses it on your carpet.
“Where’s the fucking beer in this house?”
You jump off the sofa and run out to the garage and Ivan continues
defending himself by attempting to discredit all nineteen women who have
joined #MegansArmy. It’s a classic excuse, the code of dishonor that keeps men
like Ivan in control. He grabs his phone off the floor (finally) and shows us a
picture of a woman named Wendy Gabriel. “See this one?” he snarls. “I didn’t lay
a hand on her. She grabbed my hand and put it on her leg. But they don’t tell you
that part of the story.” He spits at the article in his phone. “Fuck you, fake news!”
You return from the garage with two beers and he groans—This is a Michelob
Light—but he pops one can and shoves the other in the freezer and goes back to
screaming at his lawyer about how he never harassed anyone. Ever!
I’m worried about Nomi. She’s been staring at the same Klebold poem in her
book for several minutes now and I’m a protective stepfather. I pick up the
remote and turn on the TV. She looks at the TV. “Can you put on a movie?”
“Sure. What do you feel like?”
She stares at the ad for an antidepressant. “Something soft.”
I go to the guide and see Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and I click on it and she
grunts. “Well not that soft. Do they have that Hannah movie you told me to
watch?”
We’re not going there now and she opens her book. “Whatever,” she says. “I’m
reading.”
Ivan is still screaming at his lawyer and we need to get him out of this house.
Ask him to leave, Mary Kay. Do it. You chew your upper lip and crack your brass
knuckles and Ivan says he’s sorry and it’s a hollow apology and his voice peters
out as he slams the bathroom door. I get out of Phil’s chair and toss the remote
to the Meerkat and you follow me into the kitchen.
“Mary Kay,” I say. “You don’t need to let him stay here. You know how it goes
with these things. It’s only gonna get louder.”
“It’s not that simple, Joe.”
Nomi opens Columbine—regression is the word of the day—and you sigh. “This
is embarrassing but this house belongs to him.”
This is good, you’re opening up to me and I nod. “Okay…”
“It’s a long story. Phil and I weren’t the best with money.”
“So the house is in Ivan’s name?”
You are embarrassed and you shouldn’t be and we’re so close, Mary Kay,
inches away from true freedom. Words away from it.
Ivan slams the bathroom door and he’s on the phone again. “You call yourself
a lawyer? You wait four hours to call me back and you pooh-pooh me when I
suggest we offer these girls some money? Since when did all these women
become allergic to money? Before or after they became allergic to dick?”
Nomi closes her book and picks up her phone. “I’m gonna go see if I can get
back into NYU.”
See that, Mary Kay? That’s good news and we’re already back on track. But
then Nomi tosses her phone onto the sofa and sighs. “I don’t know who to email
about school and maybe I won’t even bother with college.” She grabs the remote.
“I mean why bother when our whole family is so messed up no matter what we
do?”
She makes a good point, but she won’t feel so dismal once you and I start our
family. You try to sit by her and she pushes you away. “Nomi, damn it, look at
me. I love you. I promise things will get better.”
She’s crying but she’s still fighting you, pushing you away, the way she did
when she was inside of you, hesitant to leave your womb and enter this
nightmare of a world. The third time you try, she lets you envelop her and she is
back in your womb now, crying softly into your bosom.
It’s a tender moment between mother and daughter and I remain silent,
respectful, but Ivan slams his phone on your table. He spills beer on your
hardwood floor. “Well, the witches are winning. Good job to their dads and
great job to their moms.”
“Ivan,” you say, reminding him of his own fucking niece. “Come on, now. I’m
asking you to cool off.”
He whines that he can’t cool off because there aren’t enough places to sit in
this fucking house so I jump out of RIP Phil’s chair. “Ivan, please. Have a seat.”
He doesn’t thank me and he doesn’t move. “I can’t sit around while there’s an
active witch hunt.” And then he contradicts himself and takes my chair. The
living room is silent, except for the family on the screen. Ivan starts to cry.
My work here is done—you know it, I know it—and I put on my coat and
wave goodbye to the Meerkat so that you can send Ivan on his way, which you
will. The crying was a white flag and the man knows he is a goner.
But then Ivan sits up and says, “Well there is one piece of good fucking news.”
You look at Ivan and Nomi looks at Ivan and I don’t look at Ivan because I
don’t want to know that he booked an appearance on some daytime talk show to
defend himself.
He grabs the other beer out of the freezer. “I will be able to cover my
attorney fees…” He pops the can.
All eyes on Ivan, even mine. And he grins. “Because I sold the house.”
Your face says it all. You don’t speak. You turn white and you never really
wanted to move and he’s cavalier. Heartless. This is your home and he’s boasting
about a cash buyer and you’re looking around the living room—this is where you
live—and your Meerkat looks at you and snarls, “So what now, Mom? Are we
homeless?”
38
You’re not homeless. And if any man on this island deserves to be sainted, that
would be me. I opened my home to you—Generous Joe!—and you live with me
now!
Sort of. It’s funny how life comes full circle. When I chose this house, I was in
prison. I showed it to Love because I thought she’d be happy about the
guesthouse, a place for her parents to stay when they visited. She scoffed at me
That’s way too small for them—but I stuck to my guns because I loved my house.
It’s on the water. It has character. It’s not an L.A. Craftsman—I got so sick of
those houses—and they’re popular in L.A. because they keep the heat out. But
on Bainbridge, we get weather. You want a house with a lot of windows, a place
that lets you soak up the sun. I thought my guesthouse would be empty until
Forty’s old enough to leave his matriarchal prison, but now you and the Meerkat
are in my guesthouse.
It was a rough month, Mary Kay. You had no time for me, too busy pleading
with iMan to reconsider and cancel the sale. But that narcissist fuck wouldn’t
budge, especially when his dutiful wife filed for divorce.
I had to tread lightly. Ivan left to go to rehab—copycat much?—and you
began hunting for a new home. You were more exasperated every day, agitated
by well-heeled Mothballs making passive-aggressive remarks about your
spending, as if going without your lattes would have made you a millionaire. I
was polite. And then, two weeks before your pending homelessness, I knocked
on your office door.
“How you holding up?”
“Terrible,” you said. “Lunch?”
I insisted on taking you out—That’s what friends are for—and we had a nice,
long, lingering lunch at Sawan. I mentioned my guesthouse in passing and one
week later, you insisted on taking me to lunch. This time, we went to Sawadty
and you mentioned my guesthouse. It was your idea to move in—it had to be
your idea—and you insisted on paying rent. We haven’t been sleeping together
—moving is stressful—and my phone buzzes: Are you awake?
It’s your first night in a new house and new houses can be scary. It’s after 2:00
A.M. and I’m your landlord—you insist on paying rent—so I respond, as any good
landlord would.
Me: You okay?
You: Yeah. This bed is good. Do you have the same kind?
You’re in my guesthouse but you want to be in my house and the Meerkat is
asleep and your rent check cleared and I tell you to come see for yourself.
Three minutes later, you are knocking on my door and I am opening the
door.
You pick up Licious and promise him we’ll do something about that god-
awful name and he wriggles free and that leaves you with free hands. A free
body. A free night.
You walk up to me. Slowly. “I’m not here.”
I walk up to you. Slowly. “And you’re not allowed to sleep over.”
Our mouths are close. We are close. Your daughter will graduate from high
school in a matter of weeks and that’s a big goalpost for us. You’ll be one step
closer to freedom from being the good day-to-day mom. You tremble. Sore from
moving all those boxes onto my property. “And you’re not allowed to tell
anyone I was here.”
You lean into me and bring my hand to your Murakami and you send me to
your Lemonhead and you missed me. You want me. I kiss you on the neck.
“Mary Kay,” I murmur. “How could I tell anyone that you were here when you’re
not here?”
You wrap your legs around me and I carry you to my bed—YES—and you
wiggle out of my arms and jump onto my bed and you bounce. You feel the
mattress with your hands and smile at me. “You’re such a liar.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Joe,” you say. “Your bed is much nicer than the one in your guesthouse.”
First you want me on top of you and then you want to be on top and you
grab my hair. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not complaining.”
I am inside of you and I am holding you and you hold on to me. “I just want
all of it,” you say. “I want all of you all at once.”
Sneaking around is fun and we’re good at it, Mary Kay. You “loved” the first
night that we got back together, but you’re right. It’s too risky for us to be in my
bed when the Meerkat is right next door. So we improvise. You come home for
“lunch” and you go to work and “forget your phone” so that you have to rush
back home to me and you always let Nomi go to Seattle to visit Peggy and Don
because Peggy and Don have so many pictures of Phil and so many stories about
him. Their shop was a shrine to Phil before he even died and I agree that it’s
good for Nomi to be with people who loved her father.
There’s truly nothing sleazy about our sneaking around. We’re looking out
for Nomi. I’m happy. You’re happy. Hell, even Oliver is happy—When Minka and
I have a kid, I’m gonna pitch this whole two-house setup—but the Meerkat is having
a hard time, she is. And I get it. She misses her house, she misses her father—
she’s been wearing the same Sacriphil T-shirt since the two of you moved in—
and sometimes, like right now, you get nervous. One minute ago we were
laughing, but then the dark clouds roll into your eyes and you sigh.
“I’m worried she knows.”
“Nah,” I say. “She doesn’t know. And school’s not out for another hour and
twelve minutes. I set an alarm.” You smile at that—you like me—and I tickle
your leg but you pull away. I stop. I pull away. “Do you want to stop?”
“Yes,” you say, as you caress my fucking leg. And then you bang your head on
my leg and groan. “You know I don’t want you to stop but I’m her mom…” And
I’m her stepdad. Almost. “She just lost her dad. Maybe she’d be okay with this,
with us, but if she wasn’t okay with it and it made her feel worse than she already
does… Well, Joe, I would feel like such a fuckup that I wouldn’t even want be
with you. I’d hate myself too much.”
“I get that, Mary Kay. And if it’s easier to stop until she goes to school, you
know me. You know I’d be happy to wait.”
I offer to wait and you respond by straddling me right here in the living
room, as if the mere notion of us breaking up is so terrible that we have to fuck
it out of our systems. After we finish, you button up—so cute—and you stop at
my front door. “You want to know my dream?”
Yes. “Yes.”
“It’s pretty simple. No more changes for Nomi right now. She gets a few
months where it’s all status quo. We stay in the guesthouse, she has a nice
summer, and she goes off to school. Then, before she comes home for
Thanksgiving, I tell her about us and she has time to process it before she has to
see us together.”
I kiss your right hand. I kiss your left hand. “I promise your dream will come
true.”
You leave and I’m a man of my word and a couple hours later there’s a knock
on my door. It’s the Meerkat.
“Nomi!” I call. “Come on in.”
“Can I use your oven?”
“Of course you can,” I say. “And I meant what I said. You don’t have to ask. I
know the kitchen in your place needs work.”
“You can say that again,” she says, carrying a Pyrex container of brownie mix.
“The fridge is loud and the windows are fogged over and I know the cats don’t
go in there but it really smells like they do…” Her father just died. Let her vent.
She gulps. “But it just feels weird barging into your house so I’m gonna knock
first, okay?”
“You got it, Nomi.”
The kid’s not wrong about the guesthouse. It’s in rough shape because I
thought I had years before Forty would show up. The main house has three
bedrooms and you and the Meerkat could live in my house—and you will soon—
but right now, we’re all about boundaries, and that’s why I love you, Mary Kay.
Nomi preheats my oven and sighs. “Why do you have so many books?”
“Well why not?”
“My mom hates when I say that when she asks me something.”
I pull out a copy of The Road. “You ever read this?”
She takes the book. “I saw the movie.”
“The book is better and it does really help after you lose someone you love.”
“Who did you lose?”
I look at the oven and nope, not hot enough just yet. “My uncle Maynard.”
“Who was he?”
In truth, I only met my “uncle” Maynard once. I asked him if I could move in
with him and he said he would pick me up the next day and I packed a suitcase
and he never showed up. He just ghosted me and then a few months later he was
dead but I know the kid wants to picture me with a family. “Well, he was a
ghostwriter. Pretty cool stuff.”
“Was he nice?”
“He was the best. We’d go to bookstores and he taught me to play pool and
he had this harmonica. You would name a song and he could play it. And he
wrote books for famous people who wanted to tell their stories but couldn’t do
it on their own.”
The lie makes me feel good, as if I really did have an uncle like that, and the
lie makes the Meerkat relax. The oven beeps and I’m closer, so I put the
brownies in and set the timer and Nomi sighs. “My favorite ghost story is about
this hotel in Concord where there’s one room that’s haunted and it used to be a
slaughterhouse downstairs.” She gets distracted, fucking phones, and loses all
interest in me, in ghosts, and asks me to text her when the brownies are done
and this is rude, but this is good, less crap for me to remember in case you ask
about my “uncle” and she’s gone and I text you: Hi
You: Hi
Me: Later?
That’s code for “Do you want to fuck in the Whisper Room?”
You: Well, I don’t know. What did you just say to her? I REALLY think she’s onto
us.
I never get impatient with you because you have an active imagination. And
I love how much you care about people, even when it’s a little fucking annoying.
Me: I promise you. She doesn’t know. She was just here and believe me, I can tell.
You: I don’t know… I think I was wrong. It makes me too paranoid. We have to stop.
That’s not fair.
Me: That’s fair.
You: You’re really okay with it? I feel bad… You know what I said, I don’t want to
stop but ahaahhaha. I can’t live with this paranoia.
Our relationship is your mug of piss and it takes every ounce of empathy in
me to appease you. I know what I said. I know I said I would wait. But this is
fucking ridiculous and we are adults and the buzzer goes off. I forgot about the
Meerkat’s brownies and I did nothing wrong—she doesn’t know and if she does
know it’s not because of me—and I grab a pot holder and I take the brownies
out of the oven and how the fuck are we supposed to make it through a whole
summer?
And then my door opens.
It’s the Meerkat but you’re right behind her and you’re not smiling and why
are you here? If you really do want to stop sleeping with me then you shouldn’t
tag along when the Meerkat comes to pick up her brownies and you barely look
at me and the Meerkat barges into my kitchen and picks up a knife. You stay by
the door and the Meerkat holds the knife but she does not slice into the
brownies.
“Honey,” you say. “Don’t burn yourself.”
I reach for the pot holder and offer it to Nomi but she just holds on to her
knife. “I’m fine.
Your hands are on your elbows and your eyes are on your feet and no, Mary
Kay. No. This is not how you play it. You don’t come in here and act like you’re
fucking mad at me—what better way to confirm that we are fucking is there?—
and I told you she doesn’t know about us and I promised she won’t find out. But
her eyes are sharp like the knife in her hand and all those knives are aimed at
me. “Do you think I’m stupid, Joe?”
“Of course not, Nomi. I think you’re exceptionally smart.”
She digs the knife into the brownies and you’re still by the door, as if you
already got your punishment. I reach for a pot holder and she hisses. “Don’t dad
me, Joe. We all know you’re not stupid either so you should know why I’m
pissed. How long did you think you could pull this off?”
“I swear to you, Nomi…” No, Joe. Don’t fucking lie. “I’m sorry.”
She is shaking the way kids do when they’re forced to think of their parents
as sexual beings and she clenches that knife, my knife.
You walk into the room now, as if on cue. “Nomi, he said he’s sorry.”
You’re looking at her, not me, and she drops the knife in the sink. “No, Mom.
I want him to tell me. I want to know how stupid he thinks I am. My dad just
died and that’s bad enough but you guys run around together behind my back
and now he wants to stand here and lie about it.”
You rub your forehead—bad sign—and Nomi’s shoulders are shaking and is
she crying? I made your daughter cry and you’re never gonna forgive me and I
need your help and I look at you but you’re…
Laughing.
The Meerkat turns around and she wasn’t fucking crying. She’s laughing too
and she raises her knife and winks at me. “Gotcha!”
You. Fucking. Bitches. “Wait,” I say. “Did I just get played?”
You are bowled over by the door, possibly peeing your pants, and the
Meerkat picks up the pot holder and carries the brownies to the table. “Mom,
omigod, I swear, you almost ruined it with your little ‘don’t burn yourself.’ ”
You are Red Bed red and you are kissing me on the cheek. What the fuck is
happening? “I know,” you say. “I don’t know why I said that.”
“I’m a little confused,” I say, because of the kiss, because of the laughter.
“Well,” Nomi says. “I’m not retarded.”
You sigh. “Nomi…”
“Sorry,” she says. “But anyway, I asked Mom about you guys… not that I
needed to ask, but she told me and I was like… okay. What’s the big deal?”
I look at you. You smile. “Outta the mouths of babes.”
You’re happy because your kid is happy and your kid is happy because she
pulled off a prank on me. We’re not gonna be like the fecal-eyed bores next
door. We’re gonna have fun.
You check in with me—Sorry if that was too much—and I tell you the truth—
You guys got me—and we’re in flow, Mary Kay. This works. This isn’t the dream
—your dream was unrealistic, like most dreams—and this is real life. Real us. So
much fucking better and this is what it means to be part of a family. I get the
plates and the Meerkat cuts the brownies and you pour milk into glasses and we
sit around my table like the family that we are, going over it and over it, how
funny it was, how good you were, how stupid I was to fall for Nomi’s little trick.
This is love. This is love I never knew and we stuff our faces with brownies and
you sigh. “What a relief.”
“You’re welcome,” Nomi sasses. “I mean no offense, but you guys are so
stupid. I will say, though, it was kinda fun watching you think you’re so sneaky
and I am sorta gonna miss it.”
It occurs to me that the Meerkat might be covering her real feelings with her
snarky, no-fucks-to-give jokes and I look at you—Is she really okay?—and you
nod at me—Yes, we talked. You smile at me and I smile at you and the Meerkat
looks at you, she looks at me, she looks at the brownies, and she sighs. “I think
I’m gonna puke.”
When you stand up to get more milk, you squeeze my shoulder and your
touch is different now. Better. You love me openly, right in front of your
daughter, and it’s the first surprise party of my life and it’s the best surprise
party there ever was.
“Okay,” Nomi says. “Can we please talk about something that’s actually
important?”
You nod. I nod. Such great fucking parents!
“Joe,” she says. “I know I’m supposed to say it was nice of you to let us move
into your guesthouse, but it’s also kind of not nice of you because I mean… have
you been in there? It’s so freaking musty and it smells like old people!”
“Nomi, it smells fine,” you say.
“Oh come on,” I say, looking at you, looking at your daughter. “Why do you
think I stopped working on the renovations? Part of me thinks we’re just gonna
have to burn the thing down.”
It’s our first collective plural and you laugh and Nomi clamps her hands
together. “Okay so can we please, please, please stop this stupid charade and just
move in here already? I mean if Mom and I stay in there, I feel like we’re gonna
die of some fast-acting lung cancer or whatever. Please, you guys. Please.
We laugh like a family and Nomi gives us space to talk and you are the future
cofounder of the Empathy Bordello. “She’s being dramatic, Joe. It’s not that bad
and please don’t feel like you have to say yes.”
I too am the future cofounder of the Empathy Bordello. “Well, I was more
concerned about you,” I say. “I won’t be hurt if you’re not ready to live with me
just yet.”
You punch me. Gentle fox. “Oh, please, Buster. You know I’m ready.”
We call the Meerkat back inside—she gets the Whisper Room—and we pack
boxes like a family and our first family hug happens naturally. It feels right. This
is the story of life. People move on. After we move your things, we cook
together and we eat together—burritos and salad!—and the Meerkat puts my
cats on her Instagram—our cats, our house—and then the two of you hang out in
the Whisper Room—women need to talk, about this, about me—and I’m not
your codependent husband. I tidy up the house and I deal with the litter box
and I turn off the light and get into bed to wait for you, hoping that you and
Nomi aren’t sinking into some mother-daughter slumber party. And we really
are in sync because I’m not in bed five minutes before I hear the door close
downstairs and it’s real. That’s you on the stairs. This is you in my bedroom, our
bedroom.
“Well,” I say. “How’s she doing with all of it?”
“I mean… she’s great. I don’t know why I was so worried.”
“I do,” I say. “Because you care.”
“Yeah,” you say. You stroke my hair. “I liked it when you looked at me at the
table, when you wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just bravado on her part,
that she really was okay about us being together.”
I take your hand. “Well, I like it when you read my mind.”
You air-kiss me and pick up a jar of face cream and rub cream on your neck
as if you think we’re going to sleep and you gaze at my empty red wall. “I mean…
can you believe this day? Can you believe we’re actually here?”
“You really had me going there for a second, so I’m doubly happy we’re here.”
You rub some of that cream on my face and that’s more like it, Mary Kay.
“Oh come on,” you tease. “We had you going for a full minute. You were scared.”
I take that jar of antifucking cream and put it on the nightstand and I take
your wrists in my hands. “If you must know, yeah, I’ve never been more scared
in my life.”
After we make love—this is our life now!—you wash your face and reapply
your night cream and you are a woman, so you feel the need to rationalize your
decisions. You tell me things I already know, that Patton Oswalt got remarried
only a few months after his wife passed away, that he has a daughter, that no
one gets to tell anyone how long the grieving process goes on. You take a picture
of us and you crop the picture—we don’t need people to know we’re in bed—
but we are Red Bed official and we are Instagram official and the Meerkat is the
first one to like it and more likes are pouring in, so much love, and you like
those likes and it’s our first night as a couple and the Meerkat texts you. She
wants to know if she can take the blanket off my sofa and I tell you that she
doesn’t have to ask.
“This is our house, Mary Kay. My stuff is all of our stuff and you can both do
as you please.”
You kiss me on the cheek. “You’re my mind reader, Joe. I love you.”
And you do. You do.
39
Yesterday I preordered two copies of a new Murakami because this is our life
now. You’ve lived here with me for twenty-two sleeps in our house, where we
make the rules and your books are all mixed up with mine. Your Murakami kisses
mine and your Yates leans into my Yates and you are there, on the steps to the
sunken living room, our sunken living room.
“I don’t know if you know this, but we do have access to a library.”
“No shit?”
“You’re funny, Buster.”
“Well, someone moving in… blending the books. It’s new to me.”
There are times when I am a kid again, too young, and you are the Sassy
creature who is too old for me, but then your hand finds the back of my neck.
“Remember, we’re less than ten years apart so…”
“So I’m the same age.”
You kiss me. “I never did this either, you know? Phil… well he wasn’t much of
a reader.” And then you sigh. You sit on the Red Bed sofa. “I think I did
something wrong.”
“What did you do?”
You put your feet—always in socks, something I know now that we live
together—on the coffee table and it still astounds me, you being here, Nomi
down in the Whisper Room watching Dirty Dancing, your dirty dishes in my
sink, your shoes lined up on my doormat. I sit by you and kiss you the way you
kissed me in the window at Eleven Winery last night. You remind me that
Nomi is downstairs and I laugh. “I’m just trying to find the logic. It’s okay to
make out in full view of everyone at the winery on Winslow and put a selfie on
your Instagram for the whole world to see… but this is too much? She’s
downstairs.”
You jab me. “Don’t make fun of my Instagram.”
“Rest assured, Mary Kay. I will always make fun of your Instagram.”
This is why we’re good, because we’re different. You’re a show-off. A fox who
wants everyone to know about the wolf in your den, and I’m helping you
remember that the best thing about happiness is that it’s yours. Ours.
“Okay,” I say. “Fess up. What did you do that’s so awful?”
You look down at your iPad. “Do you have anything going on later this
week?”
“Nothing major, why?”
You hand me your iPad and you didn’t do anything wrong. You planned a
trip for us and we’re going to another island that you describe as Cedar Fucking
Cove: The Victorian Version. You promise that Port Townsend is a Victorian
paradise of old homes and you tell me that we’ll have Victorian sex. You keep
saying that you’re relieved that I’m excited and how in the hell would I be
anything but excited? “You’ll love it, Buster…” I love that sometimes I am Buster
and other times I am Clarice and I kiss the top of your head. “This is fucking
perfect, Hannibal.”
“Is it? It’s just two nights but honestly, two nights is enough and there are
people there that live like Victorians and I just… I can’t wait for you to see it.”
This is the second surprise party you’ve thrown in my honor and the Meerkat
emerges from the basement. “Hi, guys. Bye, guys.
“Where you going?” you ask.
“Seattle,” she says. “Peg’s friend has this daughter… I dunno, she’s okay and
her friends don’t suck. Whatever. I have to go.”
Your Meerkat is off Columbine and she’s wearing a new T-shirt and you tell
her to take a jacket and she groans. “I’m not eleven.”
She slams the door and you laugh. “Is that my child?”
I tell you that all change, even good change, is hard, and we go at it on the
Red Bed and I tell you to put that on Instagram and you laugh—Such a sicko—
and we eat our beef and our broccoli and we go to bed full, satiated, but the
next day you wake up screaming. This happens sometimes, you have nightmares.
I try to take your sad song and make it better but you won’t tell me what you
dreamed about. My phone buzzes while I am spooning you.
“Who’s texting you?” You’re never at your best after your nightmares, and
your voice is full of suspicion as if I would ever lie to you.
My new friend Oliver. “My old friend Ethan.”
“You should invite him up. He has a girlfriend, right?”
I open the 1stdibs app and inquire about another David LaChapelle and I
don’t want you to meet my friends and I squeeze you. “A wife,” I say. “And that’s
a great idea.”
I put my phone away and you pull away and walk into the bathroom naked
and you turn on a song—“Hallelujah”—and oh. You were dreaming about your
rat and I go into our kitchen and turn on my music and I am a good guy. You are
allowed to mourn in your own fucked-up way and I pour milk onto eggs, onto
flour and I dream too, Mary Kay. Sometimes whether I like it or not I see RIP
Beck in the cage and RIP Candace in the water at Brighton Beach, alive,
swimming in a sea of blood.
“Mmm,” you say, dressed now. Ponytail low. Did you rub one out in the
shower? “I’m starving.”
I flip a pancake and you smile and stretch your arms above your head and
hold them up there. Cracking elbows. Twisting. “Who is this?”
“Rilo Kiley. ‘With Arms Outstretched.’ ”
You laugh and I laugh—your arms remain outstretched—and you say, “Do
you know how fucking happy I am right now? Because I just…”
I stretch my arms, just like you. “I love you so fucking much.”
“Good,” you say. “Because I’m really liking this whole life-is-a-gift thing we
have going on.”
You are walking to the door to head to work—you go in every day but for me
it’s only three days—and you reach for the doorknob. But then you let go of it.
You stare at a box of trash bags. “When did these get here?”
Yesterday at 4:12 P.M. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
“I told you I was gonna get trash bags. I completely forgot.”
I walk up to you. Closer. “And I ordered some online. It’s no big deal.”
You cluck. I reach out to you but you don’t want that. “Look,” you say.
“You’ve never been married. You’ve never lived with me. I’d tell him I’d pick up
almond milk and I would mean to pick up almond milk…” AND YOU DID
PICK IT UP. “But then I’d forget.”
“I don’t care about ordering trash bags.”
“Not right now,” you say. “This is all brand-new. But here’s the thing. Next
time I forget to pick up trash bags, and there will be a next time, you won’t
realize it, but things like that… they build up and then before you know it, you’ll
resent me. And I’ll resent you because like you say… we’re talking about
something as mundane as trash bags.
“Mary Kay, I don’t give a fuck about trash bags. I will never give a fuck about
them.”
But you look at the trash bags. “Every day, I drive in to work on a high, you
know? Because this is a dream, being with you. But then when I’m about to head
home, I get nervous. Is this gonna be the day that he’s just fucking sick of me?”
You gulp. “Is this gonna be the day that I’m just fucking sick of him?”
That last part was a lie. You’re afraid because you know you’ll never be sick
of me and I hold your hands. “Can I say something?” You answer with your eyes.
“Look, Mary Kay, I’m not a dream come true. I’m not perfect…” I used to have
terrible taste in women. “But I want you to know that I am never leaving you.
And I know that sounds trite.”
“It doesn’t.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball.”
“No,” you say, warming up now. “You don’t.”
“But just so you know, every day, when I know you’re on your way home…
well, that’s my favorite part of the day.” You raise your eyebrows. Playful. “Well,
I say, it’s my favorite part of the part of the day when I’m not in the same room
with you.”
That was all you needed and I fixed it and we put our heads together. Our
foreheads. I can feel your cells commingling with mine. I can feel our hearts
pushing, wanting to get Closer as in closed. Fused.
“Joe,” you say. “Promise me you’re in this for the long haul.”
“I promise you, Mary Kay. I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”
You laugh and hum a little of that old Huey Lewis song and then you turn
serious. You clamp your hand around my forearm and you don’t let go. You
squeeze to seal the deal, the greatest deal of my life. “Good.”
40
Here’s the thing about us. It just gets better. The library is fun. It’s slow, and
that gives us time to play our own subtle game of hide-and-seek. I love feeling
you watching me when I push Dolly Carton around the first floor and I love
when you slowly go down the stairs toward the Red Bed, making sure that I
know to follow. You were right about this—it’s a fucking blast—and you are
right about everything and it’s hard not to throw the books at the wall and
scream at the top of my lungs I FUCKING LOVE YOU, MARY KAY
DIMARCO.
The day drips on and the quietude is eerie. It’s dead lately, which gives us
time to hatch plans for our Bordello. But sometimes quiet is too quiet and you
whisper at me—I think our sex vibes pushed everyone away—and you are right.
Love is powerful that way, and finally, it’s time to go home. We feed our cats
and we fuck our brains out again—yay!—and once again we’re naked and
sweaty, wrapped up in each other. Coming back to Earth.
“What a day,” you say. “And I can’t wait to get away for a few days. Is that
awful?”
“Not at all,” I say. Because it isn’t.
“Hey, have you heard from Seamus?”
“Not much… I think he’s out of town on some CrossFit thing…”
“Does he seem off to you?”
Stupid, yes. Shallow, yes. Off, no. “Well, I think it’s to be expected. It’s hard
for people who are alone to see two people fall in love.”
“Right,” you say. “Everyone says that love makes the world go around but it
also makes the world a cruel, exclusive place, like a book club that tells you
there’s no more room at the table.”
You are so smart and I kiss your forearm. “I’d be depressed if I was in his
shoes.”
“Oh no,” you say. “He doesn’t like me like that…” Of course he does. “I just
worry.”
“I think that’s natural. When things are really good, you worry more than
normal.”
You are vulnerable and there is goop in the corners of your eyes. “Yeah.”
“But tomorrow we’re gonna go to Victorian Cedar Cove.”
You grin like a kid. “Yeah.”
“And everything is gonna be fine. Assuming that Victorian sex isn’t
dangerous.”
You laugh. “Victorian sex is perfectly safe, I promise.”
“No, Mary Kay. You and I are perfectly perfect.”
Soon you are asleep, snoring and even that’s not annoying. I’m too happy to
sleep. I order some more balloons for Nomi’s graduation party next weekend—I
bet Phil wouldn’t have ordered balloons—and I pick up one of your Murakamis
and I’m half-reading, half-daydreaming about you as you dream on my body. I
love to look down and see you there. I love that you want to be here with me
and I feel like I can see the neurons firing inside of your mind, forging new
pathways, everything leading to me, to happiness.
I’m hungry, so I go downstairs to fix a snack. We’re out of eggs so I grab a
Hostess Cupcake—RIP Melanda had good taste in junk—and I tear off the
wrapper and the cupcake tastes like childhood, like sugar.
And then my phone buzzes. I have one new text message, and that message is
from Love Fucking Quinn: We need to talk.
She never writes to me and my legs fill with pins and needles. I put my
phone on the counter and no. This is not happening. I’m hallucinating—I should
have gone to sleep like you—and my screen is black and maybe I was
hallucinating.
But then my phone lights up again. One new email from Love Fucking
Quinn.
She’s never texted me and she’s never emailed me but she is the mother of my
son. All the worst thoughts flood my mind at once—Forty fell down the stairs,
Forty drowned in the pool, Tressa stole Forty—and I grab my fucking phone and I
walk outfuckingside and I call Love Quinn on the phone.
The phone rings once and she doesn’t pick up and I see my son in the arms of
some pervert who played the Injustice System and got a job at Disneyland. The
phone rings again and I see my son with half his face torn off by a Rottweiler—
Love trusts bad dogs, I don’t—and the phone rings a third time and I don’t
know where my son is right now. Did he just crawl out of an open window in a
high-rise in New York City and are my tears from heaven? Did he die without
ever getting to meet his own father?
“Well, hello,” she says. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”
“Is Forty all right?
“Aw, I’m good, Joe. Thanks for asking.”
“Is he sick?”
“I think I have new allergies, but I don’t have it in me to get tested. All those
needles…”
The level to which I did not miss the sound of her voice… I cut her right off.
“Don’t fuck with me. Is my son okay? Yes or no.”
“Joe… He’s fine.”
“Thank God.”
“Well, okay, but maybe more like thank me because I’m the one who actually
takes care of him…”
“What’s going on, Love?”
“I sent you an email. I bought you a plane ticket and you’re coming to L.A.
tomorrow.”
I say nothing because that’s what she deserves: nothing.
“All right,” she says. “It’s simple, Joe. I need to see you. We need to see you. So
I bought you a plane ticket.”
If I ask her to wait until Monday she might hang up on me. I want to see my
son. I want to be with you, Mary Kay. My neurons are being torn in half.
“Joe?”
“I’m here.”
“Good. And you’ll be here tomorrow because if you’re not… Well… you’re
doing so good with your girlfriend and her daughter. I mean I know you’d hate
for them to find out about the family you left behind…”
She knows. How does she know? And she’s doing it again, twisting all the
facts, and I want to climb into the phone and choke her out and it’s twenty-
fucking-twenty-one and WHY CAN’T WE TELEPORT? I am steady. Breathe,
Joe, breathe. “I didn’t leave you, Love.”
“Oh yes you did,” she says. “You got into a car my parents gave you and you
drove to a house my parents bought for you and those are the facts. I’m sure
you’ve twisted it all in your head to make yourself some kind of victim slash
martyr… but I know things. And if you want me to keep my mouth shut… Well,
I’ll see you tomorrow. Today actually. So you better go back to bed. The car will
be there soon.”
She hangs up on me and I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die underneath and
she is the shark inside my shark. She cut me open and extracted all my secrets. I
puke off the side of the deck and I look upstairs and the lights are still out in
our bedroom.
I get in my car—a car my parents gave you—and I call Oliver and I get
voicemail and I text Oliver—911—and I call again and it’s soothing in some
demented way, like knitting while the person you love is in surgery. Finally he
picks up. Groggy. “Joe, it’s a little late.”
“What did you tell her?”
“What did I tell who?”
“Love called me, Oliver. She sent me a plane ticket. And we had a fucking
deal.”
“Slow down.”
“I bought every piece of art you wanted and you said you had my back. You
said you’d keep the Quinns out of the picture.”
“Joe.”
“What?”
“Are you calm?”
“Am I calm? She bought me a fucking plane ticket.”
“And what did you do before that?”
“Oliver, you’ve been stalking me and watching my every fucking move and
you know I did nothing.
He sighs. “First of all, I don’t know anything about a plane ticket.”
“Bullshit.”
“Second of all, if my ex-girlfriend who is the mother of my child was both
well-heeled and… well… a little dramatic, I think I’d think twice about bragging
about my brand-new fucking make-a-family on a public forum.”
“I did not post a picture of Mary Kay. I only post books.”
But he railroads. “I wouldn’t let the whole world know that I’m in love with a
woman and I wouldn’t want my ex to see me playing dad with another family
because I’d be smart enough to know that my ex wouldn’t like that, my friend.”
“Oliver, for fuck’s sake, I didn’t post a goddamn thing about Mary Kay.”
“Ah,” he says. “But your MILF did.”
I take the hit and Oliver laughs and I hear Minka in the background. “See,”
he says. “Minka says this is a double fuckup because your lady friend tagged you.
Which makes it seem like you thought you were being coy, ya know, posting
without posting.”
It’s no use fighting him because Oliver is right and Minka is right and I never
should have let you throw us to the wolves. But I did let you do it, didn’t I? It’s
not your fault for wanting to post a fucking selfie but it’s my fault for going
along with it. You make me so happy that I got stupid. I did this to myself and I
was doing so good. I did not kill Melanda. I did not kill Phil. I did not kill Ivan.
But I might have just killed us, Mary Kay.
The call ends and I can’t feel my feet and my eyes are twitching. I walk
upstairs to our bedroom. You’re still sleeping but in the morning you’ll wake up
and I won’t be here. I pick up a notepad on my nightstand. I grab one of your
tchotchke pencils. Virginia Woolf’s head in place of an eraser. The absurdity of
this moment. The horror. I don’t know what to tell you and my flight is in a
matter of hours and I just promised to be here. With you. I scribble lies on a
notepad—my bullshit words are sticks that will hurt you—and the last two are
stones.
Love, Joe.
You know I love you, but you don’t know that I can’t avoid Love Quinn. I
pull the covers back. I get into bed and you are in a deep sleep, but even in this
state, you are drawn to me, moving into me as you make room for me. Such a
good fit. The only true fit I’ve ever known. I hate that you’ll wake up tomorrow
and realize that RIP Melanda was right all along, that men always let you down,
that they bail on you because men do fucking suck. But so does Love, Mary Kay.
So does love.
41
Bon Jovi said that true love is suicide and he was right. Love is trying to kill us,
Mary Kay. I got off the plane and I got into the black car she sent for me and
now I’m at the door to a honeymoon suite at Commerce Fucking Casino. She’s in
the room. She’s listening to my George Harrison—Hare Krishna, Hare Forty—and
I knock on the door like an ABC prime-time Bachelor-brained loser, like I want
her rose. She opens the door and she is thin, thinner in person than she is on
Instagram and she’s wearing a Pixies T-shirt, as if she likes the Pixies, and see-
through panties. I smell kombucha and salad water and matcha and did I really
love this creature or did I only love what it felt like to be inside this little
creature?
She doesn’t kiss me. “Come on in, Joe.”
There are rose petals on the California king bed and the bathtub is full of
Veuve and she thinks we can go back to that first night we fucked, in the tub full
of pissy bubbles and I didn’t want that then, I don’t want that now, and I hate
rose petals. I hate overpriced champagne and she doesn’t get me, not the way
you do, and that’s when I feel something dig into my back.
A gun.
This is not a duel—I don’t have a gun—and Melanda was right—A GIRL IS A
GUN—and if anyone should have a weapon it’s me. She stole my child.
“Ah,” she says, as she makes eye contact with me in the mirror. “So you don’t
miss me.”
“Love, put down the gun.”
“Just say it. I know you. I feel you not wanting me. You don’t love me. You’re
not excited to see me.”
“You have a fucking gun on me.”
“Oh please. That doesn’t scare you. Don’t forget, Joe. I know you.”
She doesn’t know me. She knows things about my past and I am not that
man anymore and I slowly turn around and face the woman who made me a
father. “Love, it’s a two-way street. Don’t forget that I know you too.”
She grunts. “Like hell you do.”
“Love, you don’t want me back. You can’t do what you did to me and then
tell me that you ‘love’ me with a bed of fucking rose petals.”
She grunts. “You’re such a snob. You really are, Joe.”
“See that. There it is. All of this… I don’t know what it is, but it sure as hell
isn’t a grand gesture and you can’t point a fucking gun at me and tell me that
you want me back.”
“I’m just responding to you,” she says. “You started it. You don’t want me.”
“You paid me to go away. You…” I look around. I want him to be here—he’s
my son—but I don’t want him to be here—she has a gun. “He’s not even here, is
he?”
“Who?”
“My son.
“Right,” she says. Your son. See, it’s usually the girl who uses the guy to get
the baby. It’s usually the woman who loves her kid more than her husband. But
then, you’re not usual, are you?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You fell out of love with me the day I told you I was pregnant.”
“That’s ridiculous. The baby was just as much a surprise for me as it was for
you. Just because I was excited about becoming a father… Love, put down the
gun.”
“No.”
“Well which is it? Rose petals or bullets?”
“Say it.”
“I was in prison.
“And I was pregnant. What’s your point?”
“I told you, Love. The only reason I survived in there—the only reason I
didn’t lose my fucking mind—was the fact that we were gonna have a family.”
“Right,” she says. “You should put that on a card, Joe, ‘I only fell in love with
my girlfriend when she was pregnant with my baby and I knew I spread my
seed.’ ”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s true. Because the minute I told you about the baby, even before
you got arrested… you didn’t look at me the same way. You didn’t want me. You
wanted your baby.
“Love, put down the gun.”
“You notice that every time I tell you the truth, you tell me to put down the
gun?”
It’s true, but she ended all possibility of an honest negotiation when she
pulled out that fucking gun and that’s the only fucking “truth” that matters
right now. She could shoot me, so I have to stay calm. Gently, Joseph. “Come on,
Love. You know that’s not true.”
“You’re incapable of love, Joe. You couldn’t see your face every time I risked
exposure to disease and criminals… spiritually… physically… but every time I
went to see you, you didn’t look at me. You looked at my body like I was a
fucking piece of Tupperware carrying your lunch.
“Put down the…”
She smiles. Evil. Spoiled. Wrong. “What did you say, Joe?”
“You’re not remembering things clearly. I was worried about you, all the
stress…”
“Aw,” she says. “You didn’t think I was durable enough for the job, did you?”
“Yes I fucking did.”
“Ah,” she says. “So you did think of it as my ‘job’ to carry your offspring into
this world. The second you knew about your seed planted inside of me, I
stopped being a person to you.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, so what? You go to ‘jail’ and you think you’re so experienced and you just
fall out of love with me because I’m out shopping for the baby and meeting with
doulas and not obsessing over you twenty-four hours a day?”
“Bullshit,” I snap. “Do you know what I was obsessing over in that fucking
hellhole? You, Love. I could feel you turning on me a little bit more every time
you visited. I hated the fact that I couldn’t shop for cribs with you or meet the
goddamn doulas, but I blamed the system. You, on the other hand, you blame
me.”
I too speak the truth but she holds the gun, so she’s ranting again, raving
about how I didn’t love her. This, coming from the woman whose family paid
mercenaries to get rid of me as if I am the one in this family with all the
problems. She’s the sick one. She’s the one who told me that I didn’t kill RIP
Beck or RIP Peach because they were both just using you for their murder-suicide
story that began before they even knew you. And the worst part is that I did fall out
of love with her. I too was a little less excited every time she visited.
I wanted to love her. I did. But I couldn’t. It’s the big things—she used our
baby as a chess piece—and it’s the little things—she prefers the fake snow at the
Grove outdoor shopping mall to real snow—and she’s still ranting and she feeds
my son guac and cilantro and I obeyed her wishes. I moved away. I went against
the rules of fucking nature to appease her and what does she do to me? She hits
me when I’m up—I don’t want to love you, Mary Kay, I just fucking do—and
Love points at the sofa.
“Right there,” she says. “And don’t try to fight me. I am prepared to shoot
you. This thing has a really good silencer…” As if I don’t know that she can
afford all the best things, as if that isn’t the reason that she’s so demented,
because money doesn’t make anyone happy unless they do something good with
it. “I practiced,” she says. “I’ve been spending time at a gun range and if you try
to fight back…” This, from a woman who stole my son. “I mean it, Joe. I will kill
you.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Love. I came here to make peace.”
People who have kids like to tell people who don’t have kids that there are
things you can’t understand until you become a parent, that parenthood changes
you and that you don’t know what love is until you become a mother, a father.
It’s an insulting position that makes you realize how loveless so many people
actually are. But they are right about one thing. Motherhood does change
women. This isn’t Love Quinn. This is LoveSick, armed and dangerous.
My phone is off and you’re awake by now—I’m sorry, Mary Kay—and Love is
pacing, chewing on her fingernails, what’s left of them, and is she on meth?
“I’m not happy, Joe.”
“Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am. You have every reason to be happy. You have Forty. Is he
with your parents?”
“My parents don’t know I’m here, Joe. I’m not a teenager. I don’t tell them
every single thing I do.” She cocks her head. “And I don’t know why you’re
pretending to care about Forty now. You always wanted a girl and you never
wanted a son. Your friend Mary Kay has a daughter, now doesn’t she?”
It’s a sucker punch and I didn’t see it coming and I can’t keep up with her.
The floor is shaking—there are earthquakes in Los Angeles, even when there
aren’t—and Oliver was right. That’s what this is really all about. I remain calm.
“Love, I’ve always loved Forty. I’m thrilled to have a son. And Mary Kay has
nothing to do with us. I met her because you sent me away. Let’s be reasonable.”
“Reasonable.”
“Love…”
“Joe, you were never reasonable. I mean you say that like I don’t know what
you’re capable of.”
I grit my teeth. Was capable of.
“Yes, I was postpartum…” She is postpartum. “And I ‘sent you away.’ But
you’re you. I thought you’d swim through the moat and throw rocks at my
window. I thought you’d fight, that you’d steal him or die trying or blow your
brains out.”
“You know I’d never blow my brains out or put our kid in harm’s way. We
put the child first. That’s all I did.”
“No,” she says. Unreasonable and more spoiled than ever and imagine what
she’s doing to my son. “All you did was stalk me on Instagram.”
“What did you expect me to do? You didn’t block me.”
“I was trying to be nice.”
“So you think that’s ‘nice’? You think I should be content to watch videos of
my son.”
“Well, I know you. I know you’re more at ease watching people from afar
than really getting close to them.”
Not anymore. Not since you, Mary Kay. “That’s just not true, Love.”
“Well, here’s what is true. You found your little librarian and you think you
get to have your nice little life and still spy on us?”
“I never wanted to be a spy. I wanted to be a dad. I am his dad.”
“You drifted,” she says. “You didn’t see us at the zoo last week…” I was with
you and Nomi and it’s not my fault that stories disappear. “You watch less and
less, as if we’re not entertaining enough for you, as if you don’t need us anymore.
I know, Joe. I always look at the list of viewers and do you know what it was like
to look at that list and see your name less and less?”
FUCKING INSTAGRAM AND NO ONE SHOULD LOOK AT THAT
FUCKING LIST. “Love, Instagram isn’t real.”
“Well, time is real, Joe. And you invested more and more of your time with
your new little wannabe family, which says a lot about how much you ‘love’ your
little ‘savior.’ ”
“And what about you? You don’t have a moat. You’re not a helpless fucking
princess. You didn’t call me up and say Hey, what happened to you? What do you
want me to say? How can we make this work?”
But she isn’t my co-parent. “Well, look at that,” she says. “Love and happiness
agree with you, Joe.”
“I’m not happy,” I lie.
She laughs. “Are you kidding? You are so happy. Most men… if you took away
their son and the woman they supposedly love, the only woman alive who really
knows them…”
“You did that, Love. You sent me away, Love.”
“And you left,” she says. “Do you even care what it’s been like for me?”
“Of course I care.” But I don’t care. Not anymore. I love you, not her.
She picks at the barrel of her gun. “Well, I got jury duty.”
“I thought your dad always got you out of that?”
“This time I went,” she says. “Like some everyday person with no
connections, you know, like a librarian.She has the gun and the money so she
gets to play dirty and I stay silent. “I left Forty with Tressa and drove to the
Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. They make you park a mile away
and I had to walk all the way from Disney Hall but I got there…” I wish you
were here, Mary Kay, because as my cofounder of the Empathy Bordello you
would see what I see, a profoundly lonely woman with no one to talk to, no one
to listen to her describe her day. “I brought my chargers, LäraBars…” She winks
at me and my blood pressure spikes. I told her RIP Beck ate LäraBars and I miss
the man I am with you. “So then I got selected…” She flips her hair like she got a
part in a movie. “I went upstairs and I saw this poor guy in these dress pants
that are five inches too short with his lawyer, who was terrible…”
“Love, we both know that the Injustice System is rigged.”
Her eyes narrow. “Seriously, Bainbridge Boy, can I just tell my story?”
I nod. I have to remember. Love is unloved. Lonely. Los Angeles.
“We got numbers assigned and I was number one…” Oh that’s right, she’s an
actress. “The judge asked me all these personal questions about my history and
he goes around the room asking everyone and everyone’s telling their story and I
just… I feel so close to these people, like we were in this together, like a family,
you know?”
No, I don’t know. “I get it. That’s a lot to take in.”
“They sent us home and I went out with some of the jurors because we were
all so shook…” I don’t like the word shook. It’s a fake word, and this is fake news.
“And we wound up at this lounge downtown and it was a really late night…” Her
voice drifts in a way that reminds me that Love is perverted. “Anyway I went
back the next day but I didn’t get picked to be on the jury. I started reaching
out to my new friends and they all just… blew me off. Every single one of them.”
She’s so lonely and you would feel bad for her too, Mary Kay, even though
she’s making it impossible for me to comfort her right now. The gun. The gun.
“I’m sorry, Love. I am.”
“I miss my brother, Joe. I miss having my people. I thought those people
could be my people…” Los Angeles is the opposite of Friends and my heart hurts
for Love, it does, but I don’t want Love. I want you. “Anyway,” she says. “I told
Tressa and Mom and Dad that I got picked. For the past few weeks, I’ve been
here, ‘sequestered.’ ”
Living in a casino would drive anyone crazy and I tell Love that we can get
her some help and she shakes me off. “No,” she says. “I don’t need help. I know
why I didn’t get picked for the jury and I know why everyone blew me off. See,
the judge asked us if we could be impartial in spite of our experiences. Most
people said no. I said yes. I know how to love people who do terrible things. It’s
who I am. It’s how I was born.
“Well fuck the jurors, Love, because if you ask me, that’s a beautiful thing
about you. You have an open heart. It’s no reason to be sad.”
“Do you think I don’t know what you did to my brother?”
My nerves go haywire and no. “I did nothing to your brother.”
“You were in Vegas with him. You dragged him to the desert.”
“Love, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I knew it, Joe… in my gut. And I kept waiting for myself to fall out of love
with you because if those girls… Well I didn’t know them. But Forty was my
brother. He was my twin.
“I didn’t kill your brother.”
“No,” she says. “But you didn’t save him either.”
“Love, come on. No one could have ‘saved’ him…” He was beyond
redemption. “You make it sound like I was with him, like I could have stopped
him from jaywalking, like I could have stopped that car. I didn’t want him to
die…Of course I wanted to fucking kill him. He was blackmailing me, erasing
me from all the work I did. And yes, I almost did it in Vegas, I wanted to end his
life. But I didn’t, just like I didn’t kill Melanda or Phil. Wanting is not a crime.
“Julie Santos,” she says. “I think of that woman every day.”
The name is Saint Julie and I nod. “It’s not her fault. It’s not my fault. Love,
you’re right. Twins have a bond and nothing can get in the way of that and no
one knew him like you. So no one misses him like you and I can’t change that,
but I can help.”
“No,” she says. “You can’t help. We’re the same. You lost your son but you’re
up there bopping around like the happiest guy on earth…”
“You saw a couple fucking pictures and I didn’t even post them.”
“But you’re in them, Joe. You don’t care about us because you can’t care.”
“Yes I do.”
“No, Joe. See, my brother killed my dog and I still loved him. But you… You
lose your son and what do you do? You run off and find yourself a new family.
There’s something wrong with both of us, Joe. It’s a fact.”
“No, there isn’t, Love. We’re not defective. We’re survivors. That’s a good
thing.”
But she just points the gun at me. “Get up and turn around,” she commands,
and she is the shark inside my shark and she unlocks the safety and I look out the
window at the City of Commerce and I won’t let her win, not when I’m finally
happy, not when I finally have everything I want. I can’t do this to you. I tell her
that L.A. brings out the worst in her, in everyone, that I’m better because I left
and that she could be better too.
But she just laughs. “Oh, Joe. I’m not gonna live in your guesthouse.
“Love, listen to me. I miss Forty every second of every day and you know I
can’t be happy if you’re not happy.”
I started in the truth and swam into a lie and she knows I don’t love her and
she says she knows I wanted to leave L.A. “You didn’t leave because of the
contract. You left because you were afraid to be a father. You know me. You
knew I was never gonna sign on to that Bainbridge plan. You might not realize it,
but that’s why you came up with that dream. To push me away. And I
understand it, I do. You didn’t come back to find us because deep down, you
know that I’m just like you. Bad beyond repair.”
Those are dangerous words and when a toaster is bad beyond repair you don’t
break out the screwdriver. You don’t try and fix it. You throw it in a dumpster.
And there are dumpsters in this building, in this casino. “I’m here now, Love.”
“Right,” she says. “Just like me.”
We don’t belong in the same boat and I know where this boat is going: down.
I have to paddle. I have to fight. “Love, we’re not bad people.”
She won’t look at me. She won’t give me an oar. “You’re here because you
love them, not me, but I won’t let them wind up like my brother, Joe. Like those
girls. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
She raises the gun and her finger squeezes the trigger. The explosion is silent,
deadly. The circuit breaks. The lights go out all at once and I fall into a black
hole.
42
The black hole succumbs to white light and white light reveals white walls and
all the beeping tells me that I’m not in heaven. I’m in a hospital and the beeping
is incessant and where are you? Where am I? There was a gun. Love had a gun.
A nurse named Ashley runs in and she looks like Karen Minty and I didn’t
kill Karen Minty. I set her free and she’s alive and well in Queens married to a
cop, pregnant for the second time in a year. I’m alive too. I lived. I ask West
Coast Minty what happened and she smiles. She has long blond hair and she
wears too much eyeliner. “You got shot, honey. But you’re okay. The doctor will
be in soon.”
“How long has it been?”
She points to a whiteboard and it’s been who the fuck knows how many
hours and thirteen days and I tear at the sheets because I missed Nomi’s
graduation—did my balloons arrive and do you think I bailed on you?—and
where is my goddamn phone? West Coast Minty wants me to calm down and I
have rights. I want my phone.
“Honey,” she says. “Your dad has your phone. He’ll be back soon. Just take it
easy.”
I don’t have a dad and I might not have a girlfriend anymore—Do you hate
me? Do you know where I am?—and as promised, as threatened, the doctor is
here with a herd of nondoctors and where the fuck is my “dad”? West Coast
Minty deserts me and my doctor looks more like a real estate agent than a
physician and I really do fucking hate L.A. He flips through my chart. “So how
are we doing, Joe?”
I tell him I need my phone and the not-doctors laugh and say that my sense
of humor is intact. The doctor points at my head. “I have three words for you,
Joe. Location, location, location.”
He really did miss his calling in real estate and he brags about his work, how
he “saved” my life, as if that isn’t his fucking job, as if I care, as if I don’t need my
fucking phone and all the details go in one ear and out the other and I don’t
care that less than five percent of people recover from this kind of gunshot.
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY PHONE?
“We’ll keep you here for a couple more days.”
In the great tradition of Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory and countless other
survivors who claw their way out of hospitals, I smile. “That sounds good.”
“You’re a lucky man, Joe. I’m not sure if you’re religious, but if there’s
someone you want to talk to, we have plenty of people.”
I want to talk to you and I need my fucking phone and he leaves—nice
bedside manner—and I’m not lucky. Love kidnapped my son and shot me in the
head and where is she? Where is my son? Where is my fucking phone?
I press my emergency button and I sit up in my bed. Calm now. “Ashley,” I
say. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Ashley knows it all.
She freaking loves The Pantry and she moved here from Iowa hoping that she
would meet famous people and she did. She saw Love’s movie and that’s why it’s
so hard for her to tell me what happened but it’s also why she’s so excited to do
it.
“Love shot you,” she tells me and then she checks the door for the tenth time.
“And you do promise you won’t tell them I told you? I don’t wanna lose my job.”
“Ashley, I swear to God.”
She holds my hand and I look at her knuckles and think of your knuckles
and then Ashley Minty tells me that Love Quinn is dead.
The words are garbled. My brain won’t let them in. My heart flexes. No. Love
Quinn can’t be dead. Love Quinn gave life to my son and it’s not her time and
yes, she was upset. She was down on herself. But we’ve all been there and she
wouldn’t do that to our son. She couldn’t do that to our son. Ashley is wrong
because she has to be wrong.
“No,” I say. “That’s impossible.”
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Ashley, wait.”
But Ashley Minty does not wait. She grabs her charts and makes me swear
again not to tell anyone and I look around the room. “Who is there to tell?”
She leaves and I start crying and I’m still at it an hour later and Bon Jovi can
fuck off because true Love isn’t suicide after all. It’s attempted murder-suicide
and my son has no mother, not anymore, and the only thing worse than a bad
mother is no mother. I have no father—Your dad has your phone—and I’m alone, as
if I have no son, no girlfriend, no stepdaughter, and my eyes are pounding, my
head is throbbing and then my chest is on fire and there is a voice.
“Easy now.”
The voice belongs to Ray Quinn, older and a little wider, so many more liver
spots on his face. He’s standing in the doorway and comes to sit in the chair by
my bed. He hands me my phone—a dad, not my dad. Love’s dad.
“All right,” he says. “So it’s like this. We’ve told our friends and family that
Love had cancer.”
“Did she?”
“No,” he says. “Let me finish because you need to hear every word I say and
make sure you remember every word. Understood?”
I nod. As if I’m in a position to remember anything.
“We told the authorities that you were mugged in that casino.”
I wasn’t mugged. Love shot me. And then she shot herself. “Okay.”
“It’s a nasty place, that Commerce, and the drug fiend… the shooter… well, he
knew where the cameras were, so that’s why there’s no security footage.”
I glance at my phone and Ray is old school. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I say, and I finish my text to you: I’m sorry. Can I call you?
“So basically, if I’m asked… Love died of cancer.”
“Cancer.”
“What kind?”
“Women’s cancer.” Really old school and he rubs his eyes. “Cervical,” he says.
“And I got shot in the hallway.”
He stares at me. “Yes, you did, Joe. Yes you did.”
My phone is deathly silent and Love is dead and death is all around me, it’s
in Ray’s hollow eyes. I want you. I need you. You ignore my texts and I get it but
I got shot. My son is an orphan. This is too much at once and Ray sighs. “If you’ll
excuse me.”
The second the bathroom door closes I call you and I get voicemail. “Mary
Kay, it’s me. I’m sorry. I got…” I don’t want you to worry. “I’ll be home soon. I’m
okay, and again, I’m sorry.”
I go on Twitter and sure enough, there’s Tressa posting a Beatles song she
doesn’t know by heart: This is for you, Love Quinn. Still can’t believe it. Kombucha
smooches forever. #RIPLove #FuckCancer. I click on Love’s obituary. It’s all lies.
They don’t tell us that she lied about being sequestered with a jury. They don’t
tell us that she bought a weapon of mass destruction in Claremont and they
don’t tell us that she tried and failed to kill me, that she succeeded in ending her
own life. Los Angeles can fuck off and die because it really is the loneliest place
in the world and I stare at the last line of the fake news story.
In lieu of flowers, we ask for donations to the American Cancer Society.
Ray comes back and he must hate himself right now. He had two children
and neither one made it to forty. He sits in the chair by my bed, the chair that’s
meant for the people who love you.
“So,” he says. “How ya feeling?”
“I’m in shock. You?”
Ray ignores my question and lugs his body off the chair. He moves like a
Mafioso and time hasn’t been good to him, shuffling in shiny crocodile loafers.
No socks. Doused in cologne, as if that isn’t rude to do when you go to a
hospital. He locks the door and is that allowed?
“You okay, Ray?”
Then he turns, flying across the room. He takes off his necktie and comes at
me and wraps that tie around my neck and I can’t move, I can’t breathe, I just die
underneath and I punch the air but I’m weak. Finally he loosens his grip. And
then he throws the tie at me and spits. “Dottie,” he says. “The only reason I can’t
do it is Dottie.”
I still can’t breathe. He said he won’t kill me because of Dottie, but he wants
to kill me, and if he did, I too would get “cancer.” He picks up his tie and he’s
meticulous with it, looping it around his big fat neck, making that knot just
right, casually talking about his father, who taught him how to properly tie a tie.
Ray had a great dad. I had no dad. I still don’t know how to tie a fucking tie. But
a good childhood doesn’t mean shit because I’m not the one in here trying to
murder someone.
“All right,” he says. “You woke up and they warned me that might happen. So
how much more is it gonna take to get rid of you once and for all?”
I don’t want money—I survived a gunshot—and the “family man” should
know better. “I just want Forty, Ray. That’s it.”
“Forty grand?”
Unbelievable and yet I should have expected it. “My son.”
He makes a fist and he lowers his hand. “He’s not your son. You walked
away.”
“You pushed me away and I went because that’s what Love wanted.”
“Icicles,” he says. “Icicles in your veins.”
“He’s my son.”
“And you tell me you’d take good care of him?”
“Yes, I would.”
“So you’re a reformed man. Mr. Community Service up on Bainbridge
Island?”
“We’d come to visit once a month. More than that.”
“And you’ve been doing well up there?”
“Ray, I’m the first one to thank you for all that you did for me. And you’ve
seen me. I’ve been crying all day and I’ll never get over this and I’ll never forgive
myself for not getting that gun away from…” I don’t want to say her name. I’m
not ready. “Look, let me do the right thing here. Let me take care of my son…”
“Well…”
He doesn’t say yes but he doesn’t say no and I sit up. I look him in the eye.
“You know it’s what she would want.”
“Oh, kid,” he says. “You’re in no position to speculate about my daughter’s
wishes. She wanted you to go away.”
“I know,” I say. “But she made that plan when we were apart. She was, well…”
“It’s in the genes,” he says. “Dottie was postpartum, too.” He rolls his eyes and
if only he could get pregnant and crawl on all fours and bleed and shit and give
birth. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so cavalier about what it means to have a baby
and that’s not what I meant but I nod. “Ray, you’re right. She made the contract.
She wanted me gone. I know this will sound stupid… but she didn’t block me on
Instagram.”
“Speak English.”
“She made all these Instagram stories, right? And when you make stories…”
“Movies?”
“Pictures. Videos.”
“Who wrote the scripts?”
I AM GONNA LOSE MY MIND. “They’re like home movies. You put them
online and you decide who can see them. And it’s very easy to block people,
Ray. But Love wanted me to watch our son growing up. And I think she’d want
me to step in and watch out for him.”
“She shot you in the head.”
I have no fucking comeback for that and I never should have brought her
stories into this mess.
“I’m a reasonable man, Joe…” He just tried to kill me too. “And Dottie and I
aren’t getting any younger.”
“You look great, though.”
I count his liver spots and he smiles. “Thanks, son. Now you’re up in…
Mercer Island, is it?”
“Bainbridge,” I say. “And it really is a great place to raise a family. The house
is terrific, thank you for that. And I have a guesthouse. We could do this
together. Forty could live with me. And you and Dottie, well you’d be welcome
anytime, all the time.”
He reaches for his phone and is this really happening? I can see it now, Mary
Kay, you and me and my son and your Meerkat and things really do work out for
the best—Sorry, Love, but maybe you knew Forty needs me now, right now—
and Ray is old school, a tad violent, but he knows right from wrong and he
knows that what Love did was wrong. He’s a father and I’m a father.
He tosses his phone onto my lap. “Here’s a story that I watched recently.”
It’s like another bullet hit my head, only this time, I don’t black out. I’m in
the video. I’m lugging RIP Melanda into the hole in Fort Ward and that “movie”
is only telling half the story. I did not kill her. I did not do it. Oliver was
supposed to be my friend. He gave me his word. This is not fucking fair and Ray
just smiles. “We’re the same in that way, Joe. I too call ’em like I see ’em. And I
see you.”
“Ray, that’s not what it looks like. And you can’t trust Oliver…” And I did
trust Oliver. “He must have doctored that footage. I didn’t kill Melanda. She
committed suicide in my house.”
“And I suppose you didn’t kill the rock star either… the one whose wife
you’re schtupping up there?”
I’m not schtupping you and I tell the fucking truth. “No, Ray. I didn’t kill Phil
DiMarco. He had substance abuse issues and he took some bad pills.”
His liver spots darken. “You’re poison, Joe. This Melanda person… this Phil
you mention… Do I need to remind you that both of my children are also dead
because of you?”
It’s not my fault that his kids are fucked up and a lot of rich kids don’t
outlive their parents and my heart is pounding and did Ashley poison me with
adrenaline?
“Now you listen here,” he says. “I am a father. You are nothing. You are a
sperm donor.”
I am a father. “Ray, please.”
“I provide for the child. I make the money so I say what goes. And right now,
I say you won’t get within a hundred feet of my grandson for the rest of his life.
My daughter wasn’t a good shot… but if you try and get near my grandson…
Well, Joe, my men don’t miss.
He slams a contract on my tray table and then he drops a pen. “All right,
Professor. Sign.”
This is it. This is a moment of my life. This is my second chance, the second
time a Quinn bullied me with a contract. “Ray, you’re making a bad decision.
You have the wrong idea about me and Forty will want to meet his father one
day.”
“Over my dead body,” he says. “No. Scratch that. Over yours.
The sun is bright today, showcasing Ray’s liver spots. He sees them in the
mirror every morning, ominous blotches that remind him that he won’t last
forever, no matter how well he does with his investments and his tax evasion. I
will outlive this American Oligarch and that’s why he hates me, not because of
what he thinks I did to his children. He knows that I know that he failed as a
father. This is not a do-over. This is new territory.
He has the money. He has the power. He has guns. This is why it takes time
to smash the patriarchy. People like Ray Quinn don’t just have the support of
the Injustice System. They own it. If I want to live to meet my son, I only have
one option: I sign the contract.
I have faith in my son—Hare Forty, Hallelujah—and Hare Ray’s liver spots,
too. Cancer is coming for that bastard and who knows? Maybe it’s already here.
43
The doctor and the nurse wouldn’t let me leave, Mary Kay. They held me
hostage—If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything—and on my third
day of recovery, Howie had a seizure in the library. I read about it on the
Bainbridge Facebook page.
I texted you—I know you’re mad, but how’s Howie? I’m worried about him—and I
meant it. I was worried about the Mothball. But you ignored me.
I wasted sixteen days of our life in that hospital bed because sure, health is
fun, but what good is health without love? I called you, Mary Kay. I texted you.
You ignored me and then you ignored me some more. I ordered Bene pizza for
you and the Meerkat on Postmates and the delivery was incomplete. Just like us. I
missed Nomi’s graduation—unforgivable, like missing the birth of my son—and
I can’t see you on Instagram—you blocked me—and the Meerkat has gone quiet
on her own profile.
“Now, there’s no refill on this prescription, but these should get you through
the worst of it,” the outtake nurse says.
I grab the fucking pills and my plastic bag of papers and I bang on the
elevator buttons—come on—and I hightail it to Burbank Airport but my flight
is delayed and I sit there watching planes come and go, listening to Stephen
Bishop songs blur into Steely Dan songs and finally it’s time to board.
We land at SeaTac and now that I’m really here, really close, it’s starting to
hit me.
You might not ever forgive me. After all, Love never forgave me.
I call a Lyft and I get into the Lyft and I board the ferry and the I AM BROKEN
clock is still broken and I disappeared on you. I broke my promise to you.
We reach Bainbridge and the parking lot is buzzing with tourists and
bicycles and it’s not summer just yet, but the men are in sandals and the
mommies are in light little jackets and time has passed. Is it too much time?
I walk all the way home and I turn onto my street and you were right, Mary
Kay. This isn’t Cedar Cove. If it were, you would be watering our flowers and
making a visor with your hand and waving at me. Joe! You’re here!
I walk into my house and it doesn’t smell like brownies and you filled the cat
food dispensers and Licious stares at me as if he’s not sure who I am—Fuck you,
cat—and Riffic hisses—Fuck you too—and Tastic doesn’t even get off the
fucking couch, so fuck him the most but no. They didn’t do anything wrong.
I did.
Your shoes are not lined up on the doormat and I call Oliver and a woman
with a Lebanese accent says there is no Oliver and that’s typical. He changed his
phone number. He was never my friend and his house is furnished and people in
L.A. just use you to get what they want and I walk to my guesthouse and I hope
to see your things in here, but my second little house is empty too. You ghosted
me and I have to breathe in spite of my pain. You only ghosted me because you
think I ghosted you.
I would never do that to you and you know that deep down, don’t you?
I am a wounded soldier of Love home from WWIII. I clean myself up and I
should probably drive to the library instead of walking but I like the idea of you
seeing me wounded, struggling and sweaty. When I get there, I hesitate at the
front door of the Bainbridge Public Library and then I take a deep, first-page-
of-a-new-book kind of breath and I open the door and there you are in the same
spot where you were the first day I laid eyes on you. You drop your book on the
counter. Splat. Roxane Gay today, a far cry from our Day One Murakami, all but
sucked inside.
You march across the library and I follow you outside and you head for our
love seat. You don’t sit—bad omen—and you make two fists and you seethe.
“Oh, fuck it.”
Now you sit—omen reversed—and I sit too. You cross your legs, tights even
today, in early summer, like a widow in mourning, and do I put a hand on your
knee to remind you of the heat between us? I don’t.
“Mary Kay.”
“Nope. Don’t even try.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nyet.”
“I got shot.”
“That’s nice.”
That’s not nice and I touch the bandage on my temple and you fold your
arms. “If you came here looking for pity, you may as well just leave.”
“I know I fucked up. I was in the hospital, Mary Kay. I got shot and I called
you… I texted you… Hell, I tried to send you guys a pizza.”
You nod. “Howie died.”
That’s not my fault. Howie was a widower hanging on by a thread, by a
poem. “I know. I saw. And I texted you when I read about it and I called you…” I
can’t make this about me. “How are you? How was Nomi’s graduation?”
You uncross your legs and clamp your hands over your knees as if you don’t
want me to see them, let alone touch them. Your knuckles are brass mountains.
Mute.
“Hannibal, I know I fucked up. I’m not trying to make excuses.”
You don’t call me Clarice and your voice is new. “I think you should go.”
“We have to talk about this. You can’t just punish me because I got mugged.”
Foxes are nasty, they kill house cats, and you are no different. “You just don’t
get it, Joe. And I’m going back inside.”
“Wait. You have to let me explain what happened.”
“I don’t ‘have’ to do anything. And this is our pattern. I see that now. It’s
always me telling you that you don’t owe me an explanation or you telling me
that I don’t owe you an explanation and we tried… but it doesn’t work.”
“This is different.”
You shrug. “We’re a bad fit. We’re always apologizing or making big
ridiculous leaps that neither one of us are really prepared for. I don’t hate you.
But I know this doesn’t work.”
“You can’t do this to me, Mary Kay. You can’t refuse to talk about it.”
“No, Joe. See that’s the thing that you don’t seem to understand about
relationships, about women. Your feelings are not my responsibility.”
Yes they fucking are. That’s called “love.” That’s called “us.” “I know that.”
“So let’s be adults. I messed up too. I realize I was coming on way too strong,
moving in with you, asking you to never leave me…”
“You were not coming on too strong. I loved all of it.”
“You don’t get to say that after what you did, Joe. Actions speak louder than
words. And you sit here and you don’t even understand why I’m mad, do you?”
“You’re mad that I left. But, Mary Kay, I left you a note.”
“A note,” you say. “Yes, you left me a note. Mary Kay, I had to go to L.A. for a
family emergency. I’ll call you when I land. I’m so sorry. Love, Joe.
That is why you’re mad at me, that fucking note. But you memorized that
note and I still have a chance. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry, Joe. I care that you didn’t wake me up to tell me
what happened. I care that you were vague. When people are together they tell
the truth. They don’t say bullshit like ‘family emergency.’ They grab your
shoulders. They turn on the lights and they tell you exactly what happened and
they ask you to come with them, Joe. That’s what adults do.”
“I’m sorry. Look, it wasn’t family, not exactly. But this girl I dated in L.A., her
family is terrible…” It’s true. “And she got sick and—”
“Joe, it’s too late. You’re wasting your time.”
You say that but you don’t move and you’re right but you’re wrong. “Well,
how about seeing it from my perspective, Mary Kay. You were married to
someone, I know. And God bless him, may he rest in peace, but he dumped every
single thing on you every single day. He didn’t hesitate to unload on you at 4:00
A.M. and did you ever think… maybe I was only trying to let you get a good
night’s sleep? Did you ever think maybe I did that because I thought that was a
good way for me to love you in that moment?”
“Maybe it’s not in your nature to love.”
Goosebumps sprout on my arms and fresh bullets zing my head, my heart.
That’s the worst thing you ever said to me and we’re on our fucking love seat and
you sigh. “I’m sorry. This is exactly what I didn’t want. I didn’t want a fight, and
I do hope your ex is all better, but it’s over, Joe. And you need to accept that.”
I rub my head, just enough to remind you that I am wounded. “Well I don’t
think it is.”
“I’m actually happy that you brought Phil into this…” I never should have
brought that rat into this. “Because it really is about him. The one day he needed
me to be there… I was with you. I’ll never forgive myself for that, Joe. And this
whole disappearing act, the wounded warrior bit, you’re right. It does feel too
familiar. I’m not gonna spend any more of my time taking care of a man who
walks out on me and comes back wounded and needs me to fix it.” You take a
deep, end-of-the-book kind of breath, as if you are ready for this damn novel to
be over, and then you offer your hand as if you no longer believe in love.
You say that dirty word again. “Friends?”
Love didn’t murder me, but she got what she wanted in her psychotic
depressive state. She murdered us. I shake your hand—Friends—and the power
goes out all over my body and I walk to the parking lot. I am in no condition to
walk, to drive. I find shade beneath a tree.
“So it lives.”
I look up and it’s the Meerkat. She aged while I was gone. Or maybe that’s
just me and maybe I’m in denial because she also regressed again. She’s back on
Columbine, squinting.
“Nomi,” I say. “Congratulations, graduate. How you doing?”
“Well I didn’t get stabbed in the head.”
“Shot,” I say. “But it’s no big deal.”
She wants to see the wound up close and I tell her to stay where she is
because if you are watching us—and I hope you are watching—I want you to
know that I’m not using my wound to get attention and I would tear this Band-
Aid off my fucking head if I could. She nods. “Cool.”
“Look, I’m sorry about disappearing…”
“Oh, I’ve barely been here. I made some friends in Seattle, been at Don and
Peggy’s a lot. Anyway, are we moving back to your house? Cuz the Marshall
Suites is so gross and I hate sharing a room with my mom.”
You hate me so much that you moved into Oliver’s old hotel and damn you,
RIP Love Quinn. “Well,” I say. “Your mom’s not too happy with me right now…”
She shrugs. “My mom’s never happy. Except when she’s with you.” And then
she rocks back and forth on her sneakers that are too young for her, sneakers
that light up. “Seriously, Joe, see you soon. I mean it’s fine. It is.”
She says that with such confidence and she knows you in ways that I don’t.
She’s known you her whole life and she tells me that she’s right about you, Mary
Kay. You are happy when you’re with me and that is the bottom line and I see
you in the library. You see me and the Meerkat catching up. You know this is
meant to be. The Meerkat takes off—Sorry you got shot in the head—and I look
into the window, into your eyes.
You don’t wave but you don’t give me the finger. You turn your back on me
right now and pretend to be busy with a Mothball—you’re not—but you’re not
done with me. I just have to make things right.
The walk home is brutal and my head is throbbing and I should probably have
taken a cab from the ferry to my house and I should probably have lain low on my
first day back. I finally give in and pop a pain pill and I pick up your filthy
doormat and throw it into the washing machine—I have to get our house ready
for you to come home—and I watch the doormat go round around—it’s the
drugs, I hate drugs—and I put my hands on the glass—see the boats go sailing
and I am drooling and sweating and my head is full of tainted cotton candy.
These pills are too much and the doormat is a sailboat. I’m hallucinating. I
hear Stephen Bishop in the airport, singing about women in Jamaica and then
the music that isn’t real dies and I am back in my house and my feet are on the
floor of my laundry room and these are my feet and the doormat isn’t a sailboat.
But I am not alone.
I see a man in the glass. This is Bainbridge and it’s safe but I was gone for two
weeks and criminals do this. They watch houses. He probably thought I was
gone.
He takes a step forward and I make a fist and his shadow is clearer now and
this is Bainbridge and it’s probably a misunderstanding, a neighbor concerned
about the sudden activity in the house. But Bainbridge is an island in a state in
the country of America, and America is violent and if the man were here on a
wellness call, he would say it.
I squint like the Meerkat and take a closer look at his reflection. I see a
baseball cap and narrow sloping shoulders. He is short. Short as Shortus. I turn
around and it is Shortus but he didn’t pop by my house to make sure I’m okay.
He’s armed and I’m empty-handed and slow—drugs are evil—and the blow is
fast. Thwack.
Man down, Mary Kay, one of the good ones.
44
People say that victim shaming is a bad thing, but sometimes, the victim should
be fucking ashamed. I took a goddamn pain pill on an empty stomach and I
didn’t lock my doors, as if I’m some fourth-generation Bainbridge bum fuck
who refuses to lock his doors because once upon a time the island was safe and
you didn’t have to lock your doors so you know what? I deserve to be tied up by
a sixth-generation Bainbridge CrossFit lunatic in his Olympic Mountain
hideaway cabin.
Shortus didn’t do this to me. I did this to myself.
I smell Windex. Clorox. Things that end with the letter x, and I can’t punch
him—my hands are tied—and I can’t kick him—my legs are locked at the ankles
—and I have a head wound and I don’t know karate.
He put a bag on my head. I can’t see. He stuffed a sock in my mouth—I think
the sock is dirty—and I wiggle my tongue and this is not how it ends for us.
Shortus will not kill me.
Or maybe he will because he’s close now. “You just couldn’t stay away, could
you?”
I make a sound and he spits at the bag over my face. “You worm your way
into that library. You worm your way into our lives. That piece-of-shit has-been
crybaby drops dead and you worm your way into her house.
I was right. This is about you. I try to worm the words out of my mouth but
the sock won’t let me and he’s on his feet now. Stomp, stomp, stomp. “And the
worst part is, I knew it. I knew you were bad news.” You and me both, asshole.
“You move here and suddenly all’s I hear about is Joe. He volunteers. He reads a
lot. In my head, I’m thinking, Sounds like a fucking pansy. But she won’t shut up
about you. So I figure, I gotta meet this guy, see what he’s about. And then I get
a look at you and you’re soft. You got no job. You’re a loser. I’m thinking, This
poor loser’s no threat. I get you a deal at CrossFit, I let you tag along for beers,
even though everyone thinks you’re a fucking snob. But do I worry? Nah. You
crash lunch at the diner and you’re talking chick flicks with Melanda. You’re an
even bigger pansy than I thought and I think… good. Maybe that feminazi will
finally shut up if she gets some good dick in her.”
I knew that lunch with your Friends was a bad idea, Mary Kay, and he’s
twisting my words and this is Twitter in real life. I am muted. Blocked.
“I let you mope around in your slick sweaters…” Cashmere isn’t slick, you
moron. “I let her go on about how smart you are even though you didn’t even go
to college…” Even in Cedar Cove there has to be some asshole talking about
college and FUCK YOU, AMERICAN CASTE SYSTEM. “But I’m no dumbass,
you sweater-wearing volun-fucking-teer.” The bump on my head is playing Ping-
Pong with a hockey puck in the hole in my head and he’s close again. Breathing.
“She had it bad for you. You got her to move in with you.” I think I hear his
heart. Does he have a knife? “Even then I wasn’t worried. You moved in on her
after the has-been finally croaked and all girls go nuts when they’re sad. I wasn’t
surprised when you split. I told her myself, You can’t trust a man who doesn’t take
care of his body. And I was just about to get back in there.” I smell urine. He’s
peeing on me. On my legs. “You shouldn’t have come back, pansy. And you
shouldn’t have gone to the library and tried to get her back.”
He zips up and this is why you kill people, because most people are horrible.
He kicks me in the balls and it’s so predictable that it doesn’t hurt quite as bad
as it would have were there an element of surprise and the pain in my balls is
another hockey puck and now my balls are in the game with the hole in my
head and the bump on my head and is this how I die? From Ping-Pong?
“The whining, man. Joe came back. I need time to think. He kicks me in the
balls again. “I said, You’re outta your mind. He’s a loser, can’t even commit to
CrossFit.” Oh God, he thinks he’s my trainer and he kicks me in the leg and my
shin is in the game too now. Ping. Pong. Pain Pong. “I’ve been working that girl
for years, and unlike you, I never ran away. Never.
That’s a kick to my other shin and the Pain Pong is now a tournament, a
death match and signs, signs, everywhere signs and I missed every fucking one of
them. You called him a saint, truly and the first time you ever told me about
him, you were defending his honor. He cleaned your gutters, an animal marking
his fucking territory the same way he marks his body with that Cooley
Hardware logo, so that you see his last name and think maybe you could be Mrs.
Fucking Cooley.
He spits in my face. “No job. No muscles. No nothing. That’s what you are.”
You were wrong about him but you were dead-on about me and I am bad at
reading people and how did I not realize that his hardware store is a jealousy
trap? He refers to those women in his shop as girls to make you feel old.
Endangered. And the reddest flag of all: He gave your daughter a job in his
fucking store. No wonder she quit. He probably bugged her ten times a day—So,
how’s your mom, Nomi? Tell her Uncle Seamus said hi.
My life doesn’t flash through my eyes, but I remember things I didn’t know
that I remember, like Melanda’s notepad in her phone, how she griped about
Mary Kay and Seamus: MK’s attachment to Seamus is so weird. I know she was only
seventeen when they hooked up and I know it was only five minutes but eeeew. I should
have known then, same way I should have known when he blasted Kid Rock at
the gym—the remake song about the teenage summer fuckfest by the lake. He’s
been carrying a torch for you since you were seventeen years old.
He growls. Close. “Look at how soft you got. What did you even do for the
past few weeks, pansy? Cuz I can tell you weren’t working out.”
There is no conversation subject more boring than exercise and this is why
it’s dangerous for women to be “nice” to men, Mary Kay.
He swats the side of my head. Ping Pain. Pain Pong. “You split town. You
come back outta nowhere and she’s ready to jump your bones. But Saint Seamus
is here to make things right.He got Roman on the Succession quiz, Mary Kay.
He’s evil. Pure evil. “Are you listening to me, Jewberg? You’re done with her. It’s
over.”
He hits me and he kicks me and it’s March Madness in my head and it’s the
World Series of Pain in my balls and if I get out of this, those Big Pharma
fuckwits will be getting a strongly worded letter from me. Their little pain pills
don’t do shit and he punches me in the face.
“She’s mine, you piece of pussy-ass Hebe shit.” I’m only half Jewish and I
whole hate him and you would too if you could hear him right now. “And she’s
gonna be mine forever and you know why, Hebe?”
I haven’t heard that word since I was ten years old and he is close now.
Breathing at me. On me.
“Because I’m a man, you bookworm little bitch. And in the real world…” Oh,
Shortus, Bainbridge Island is not the real world and in the real world, people in
situations like this die. RIP Beck died. She kept a knockin’ but she couldn’t get
out and am I next? I flex and I push but I can’t get out and he’s too quiet. I
remember that first touch in the library. Your hand in mine. Don’t tell the others.
I didn’t, Mary Kay. You did. You told the others. You threw us up on Instagram.
You are a fox and you wanted to show off, you wanted to kiss me in the window
at Eleven Winery and you wanted everyone to know we were living together.
You wanted your Friends to approve and it’s not the pain, it’s not the possibility
of death, it’s the fact that we really could have had our family if you had just
thrown your arms around me a few hours ago, when I was in the kind of pain
that can be healed with a hug. Now you’re going to lose me and I don’t want
that for you. You’ve already lost so much.
Shortus yanks me by the neck and my body hits the floor and the Pain Pong
tournament is a melee, hockey pucks hurling on every playing field in my body.
“I’m not gonna kill you,” he says. “You think it’s so ‘safe’ up here and it is. Our
people are good people. But we got animals, Jewboy. We got lots of animals and
one of them is going to get you.”
45
My back is up against bark—he strapped me to a tree—and I still can’t see
because of the bag on my head. Birds chirp and I can’t call for help. I’m still
gagged and Shortus has a rifle. It’s too soon. Love only pulled a gun on me a
couple of weeks ago—look how that worked out, she’s dead—and you called this
man the Giving Tree and he calls me a tree hugger and I can’t fucking talk. He is
close again, close as in armed and for fuck’s sake, America, GET RID OF YOUR
GODDAMN GUNS. “Today’s the day you become a fucking man.”
The good thing about a bad childhood is that it prepares you for hell in the
adult world and Seamus didn’t cut off my limbs—positive thinking—but he has
a bucket of blood—whose blood?—and he’s splashing it on me like holy water
and this isn’t a cold and broken hallefuckinglujah. This is grim. The ropes are
tight—naval knots and he wasn’t in the fucking Navy but he did go to camp
and a lot of people would lose their shit but unlike the coddled Peach Salingers
of this world, I don’t need help when it comes to self-soothing. I know how to
survive and I will survive because he said it himself—you have it bad for me—and
you want to be with me. You are here for me now, in the blackness of my panic.
In my mind I see you on our love seat and you see me and you want me to be
okay—you love me—and I don’t want you to worry so I try to make you laugh. I
sing because you like it when I sing and you know the tune. How will I know if
he’s gonna kill me? I say a prayer but I’m tied to this tree. Shortus breaks my song
with a gunshot—pop—and he shoots an animal and I bet it was a rabbit because
he spits and grunts, “Sorry, Thumper.”
He picks up his bucket of blood again and splashes it on my back, on my
skin. “We need some real critters,” he says. “These bunnies are bullshit,”
I can’t believe it either, Mary Kay. Your Friend is pouring blood on me to lure
innocent woodland creatures and so far it’s just tiny ones, rabbits and squirrels,
but he lets them get close. I am sniffed and I’ve been nipped and then he kills
these living things and I am safe but I am not fucking safe. What if a bear
comes? There are bears, if I’m to believe him, and Dying for love is so bittersweet,
I’m asking you how the fuck you didn’t see through this psychopath? You fade. I can’t
see your face. He kicks the back of my knee. “You pissed yourself like a little
bitch.”
I hear his Timberlands pounding, he’s walking away again and the bucket is
in play, more blood on my body and he’s howling for coyotes and if they come
in a pack—and they do move in packs; they’re like Friends—we are dead. Both of
us. He hoots and he makes catcalls—Come on, cougars, I know you’re out there
and he is a fourth-grade boy picking out his favorite wild animal for no good
reason.
He sits somewhere and he mews at the cougars and are there cougars in these
mountains? He laughs. “Are you crying, pussy? Oh man, you know I wish we did
put some meat on your bones. Cougars gotta eat too!” He mews again and he
says that Robert Frost was right and no poetry. No. “Nothing gold can stay,
Ponyboy… I love that movie, man. I do.” It was a book, you fucking moron, and
he snorts. “Fucking bullshit ending, though, because Ponyboy shoulda croaked
like his little bitch-ass friend. The soc’s… they were the good guys but the movie
makes ’em all out to be so bad just cuz they got good families.” He shoots
something. A bunny? A squirrel? I don’t know. I can’t know. “See, you’re what
happens in real life, fucking hoodlum, how long you been here and not one
friend comes to visit? Fucking freak.”
I hate when he talks because I can’t hear the branches or the footsteps of God
knows what might be approaching and Shortus finally does stop talking but then
I hear the branches and the footsteps of God knows what and the theme of my
bar fucking mitzvah is death and he’s on the move. Running. In my face.
“Don’t even think I’m gonna let some little squirrel peck atcha, pussy. You
need to bleed. Just like all the little bitches do when they man up and become
women.”
I am fucking bleeding—the ropes are cutting my wrists—and I try to talk and
I shake my arms and he spits at my arms. “That’s rope burn, you pussy. You need
to bleed like a man.”
He’s on the move again, Timberlands on leaves, crunch crunch crunch, and I
see you in a hall of mirrors and you sing to me, you want to save me—There’s a
man I know, Joe’s the one I dream about—and you are safe in a cushy hall of mirrors
where nothing bad can happen to you and I am here in the woods. There are
jaws on my leg. Teeth. That’s my skin cracking and that’s my blood leaking onto
my pants and then Pop. The jaws let go and it’s another bunny down but I am
wrong. Shortus whistles. “Huh,” he says. “I think this fox was pregnant.”
He killed a fox and you are my fox and he’s doing something different,
shaking his phone. “Man,” he says. “When I get back down and I see her, I’m
gonna tell her she was right to bitch about the shitty Wi-Fi. I can’t even get the
score on the Sounders game.”
You were here with him—how could you do that to me?—and the image of
the two of you in these woods is a shark inside my shark and he’s a liar. Shortus
lies. This I know for a fact and I have to decide that you were never here so I do
that right now. He killed my fox and he drops his phone. He heard something. I
heard it too. Something larger than a squirrel and this is the Stephen King book
Gerald’s Game and unlike Gerald’s wife, whose husband was dead and bad, I have
someone to live for: you.
I beg and I plead with the universe to call off the cougar—or is it a bear?—
and I promise if I get out of this I will do better. I will be the best goddamn man
on planet fucking Earth and Gerald’s wife had it easy. No bag on her fucking
head. My senses are hot-wiring and I can’t hear and I can’t see and I feel the
tongue of something wild, something incapable of knowing the difference
between a good man like me and a scorpion salamander of a man like Shortus
and is it a wolf? Pop and the living thing whinnies and drops and Shortus sighs.
“Duck duck goat. Goddamn hippies and their goats. Just do your yoga and leave
the animals out of it.”
RIP goat—no supernatural forces coming to save me in this dull fucking
neck of the woods—and Shortus drops his weapon. The flies are all upon me
now, loud and close. Mundane.
“Whole shit ton of girls out there, Joe, and you just had to fix your eyes on
mine.”
You’re not branded. You don’t belong to him. I scream into my sock.
“The worst part about all this, oh man, she tells me she wants you and she
says that me and her can be friends.
That’s your right, Mary Kay, and when you said that to me did I kidnap your
husband? No. I accepted your terms and this is what I get for it and I scream
again. It’s no use.
“One week ago, one fucking week ago she was in my cabin with me and you
come back outta nowhere and boom. Finito. She’d be here right now if it wasn’t
for you, you bookworm piece of shit.”
It hurts to think of you in these woods with him and this is not how I want
to die. Knowing that you slept with him when you were seventeen is one thing.
But last week… no. You should have told me that he pines for you, Mary Kay.
We all get weak, we all make mistakes and I could have martyred your saint and
then I wouldn’t be tied to this tree and he digs his rifle into my back.
“Stop crying, bitch. This is nothing compared to what I went through with
my soccer team or my frat or my old man, so man up already.”
I am caught in the toxic cycle of masculinity, the one quietly tolerated by the
American System of Miseducation and he was hazed so he wants to haze me and
Dying for love is so bittersweet. He shoots another living thing and he whines—
fucking squirrels—and every dead animal is a reminder that the days really do go
too fast. My life is ending and I don’t want to die. I don’t want my son to be an
orphan. He lost his mother. He can’t lose me too. I try to picture him older, and
I can’t, too scared, and I try to remember being with you on our love seat and I
can’t do that either. The Pain Pong tournament ended and the flocks of rabid
fans are long gone. I will die here and I can’t even hate him, because like you, I
am too good for my own good. The Empathy Bordello has been ransacked and
burnt to the ground before it even existed and he heard something and he
hisses.
“Hey,” he screams. “What is that?”
My eustachian tubes go to high alert. I heard it too. Is it you? You know
about this cabin. You rejected him today and you’ve been to this cabin and did
you come back?
“I’m warning you, buddy. You’re on my property.”
My heart pounds and I can’t hear so well and I want it to be you—save me—
and I don’t want it to be you—he could kill you—and I don’t know what to
want. Cops. Yes. Let you be the savvy fox that knows better than to come here
alone.
“I’m counting to three,” he says. “One…” Please, God, let it be her. “Two…”
Please, God, don’t let it be her.
He doesn’t make it to the number three. His voice is thwarted by the pop of
a gun. Not his pop. A different gun. I can’t see and I can’t hear but I see dead
people because in my heart I know that Shortus is dead. I scream into my
sweaty sock for help—thank God for guns—and the footsteps are getting closer
but my heart is beating faster. I want my nervous system to catch up to my
brain and I tell myself over and over that it’s over. You need to calm down.
And then the shooter is at my tree. Breathing heavily. Close. He is not a cop
because cops are loud. They announce themselves. The bag is still on my head
and a police officer would have pulled the bag off my head by now. Here goes
my heart again—tick tick tick—and I was so afraid of animals that I forgot
about the worst of all predators, the most power-hungry predators on this
planet: humans.
Urine runs down my leg once more and the shooter puts the barrel of the
gun he used to kill my enemy against the back of my head as if I am the enemy. I
am crying now, my pleas about my family muffled by the sock in my mouth and
then he laughs and drops the gun. “Relax, my friend. Show’s over. Score one for
the Poor Boys Club.”
Oliver.
46
The bag is off my head and it’s over. Oliver saved my life. My son won’t be an
orphan and you won’t have to mourn, wishing you’d told me that you love me
when you had the chance. Oliver is a hero and Oliver kept an eye on me because
he was worried about me. RIP Shortus was a fake friend but Oliver is a real
friend and that’s what they say, that you’re lucky in this world if you have at
least a couple of real friends. True friends.
But all friends are flawed and I’m still tied to the tree and he’s in Shortus’s
cabin and this day in the mountains needs to end. “Oliver! Any luck with
finding a knife?”
“One sec, my friend!”
RIP Shortus is dead, yes, but the Pain Pong tournament is starting up again,
no more nice adrenaline to lift me out of my body, and it’s impossible not to
think about what Oliver did wrong. That fucking video of me and RIP Melanda
and I say it again, calm. “Oliver, I don’t want to rush you, but I’m pretty bad out
here.”
He hops down the front steps of the cabin and he’s carrying an Atari game
set like he didn’t just end a man’s life. “Check it out, Goldberg. I was just looking
for one of these on 1stdibs!”
He takes a picture of his new toy but he can’t send it to Minka—no Wi-Fi—
and my skin suit crawls because oh that’s right. My friend Oliver is a sociopath
private dancer slash screenwriter and without him, I die in these woods, just
like RIP Shortus.
“Oliver, I don’t know how to thank you.” Oliver, move your ass and get me off
this fucking tree.
“No need,” he says. “We talked about this. When you win, I win. When I win,
you win.”
Then why did you show Ray that fucking video? “Well, still, thanks.”
He pats me on the back, as if I’m not tied to a tree. “And I’m sorry about
Love,” he says.
What about THE VIDEO, you fucking asshole? “Thanks,” I say. “I’m just still
in shock right now.”
Oliver begins slicing the ropes and he’s no naval-boys’-camp-trained RIP
Shortus. He’s terrible with a knife—fucking gun people—and he keeps dropping
it on the ground and what if he has a heart attack? What if he dies before he
finishes his work? “So I got news. I got a new agent.”
I AM TIED TO A TREE AND I GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD, YOU
ANGEFUCKINGLENO. “That’s great.”
He drops the knife and it grazes his hand and now he is bleeding and how the
fuck did he hack it in the kitchen at Baxter’s? “Yeah,” he says. “And we’re taking
my show out next week.”
And no one will buy it and it won’t be because of karma. That’s just how it
works in L.A. “How’s your hand?”
“Oh right,” he says, and at least he’s back to work on what matters: Me. You.
Freedom. “So my show, you wanna hear the pitch?”
I had three “friends” on this planet, Mary Kay. My drinking buddy turned
psychopath friend Seamus is dead. Ethan is engaged to Blythe, and this one is a
malignant narcissist. “Sure!”
Cedar Cove meets Dexter.
The referee in Pain Pong calls a time-out and the blood stops circulating in
my body. I look at him and he looks at me and he smiles. “I wasn’t lying to you,
my friend. We do have each other’s backs.”
Oliver’s “show” is a roman à clef about my life—that’s stealing—and his
protagonist is JOHNNY BATES—“You know, for The Shining and for Psycho”—
and Oliver hasn’t just been stealing my money. He’s like your dead husband,
stealing my pain. Oliver’s going to sell his show to FX or HBO or Netflix—not
gonna happen, ideas are a dime a dozen and I can’t picture him actually writing
the fucking thing—and he’s so slow with the knife, droning on about spin-off
potential. You’re out there somewhere, thinking I’m not trying to win you back
and I snap. “Fucking A, Oliver, why did you give Ray that video? You swore you
wouldn’t do that.”
Oliver stops cutting the rope and that was not the result I was going for.
“Well, you know why I did that, Joe. Because the Quinns bring out the worst in
us.”
It’s a child’s answer and it was stupid of me to ask and I WANT OFF THIS
FUCKING TREE. “Did he hack your phone?”
“Look,” he says. “Minka and I have a huge collection now…” YOU’RE
WELCOME, OLIVER. “And we need more space. Ray was talking like he’s
about to fire me. He said I’d get a huge bonus if I found something on you… I’m
sorry, my friend.”
He doesn’t chase his apology with a but and he plays with his fucking knife,
the knife that also happens to be the key to my liberation from this truth.
“There’s a twist, though.” Fucking hacks and their twists. “Next day, Ray does his
research. He realizes that I withheld the video and… he fires me. And that’s why
I came up here, my friend. I couldn’t let anything happen to you…” Maybe his
heart is bigger than I thought. “You’re my only source of income until I sell
Johnny Bates.”
He’s lucky I’m tied to this tree and I summon the last of my fucking empathy
and thank him again and he goes back to saving me—finish the job, you prick—
and describing his male lead, as if that’s what the world needs, another sociopath
on TV—and he says that Johnny Bates is mysterious and well-read but a little
rough around the edges. Finally Oliver gets the top rope but my body lurches
back, my muscles are broken from Pain Pong and I lose my balance and again he
has to save me from falling. Again I have to thank him.
“You okay, my friend?”
No, I’m not okay. I got shot in the head and hit on the head and now this
fucker is twisting my life into some gleaming, steaming pile of shit for TV. “I’m
good. Just really need to rest.”
Oliver shuts up about his shit show and he’s getting better with that knife
and now my legs are free—Hare Oliver, Hallelujah—and he clips the zip ties and I
have hands again, two feet instead of one stump. I am dizzy and the car is not
close and he says we can’t think about leaving until we clean things up.
“Come on,” he says. “It’s not as bad as that dungeon in your house.”
My Whisper Room is not a dungeon and I’m too weak to help him and he tells
me to take a bath and did you fuck Shortus in this tub? I don’t know. I don’t
care. I bathe and Oliver scrubs the floors, periodically interrupting his flow to
tell me about his TV show and finally I am clean and the crime scene is clean
and we are on foot, walking, limping.
“So,” he says. “You wanna come back to L.A. and help me on the show? Ray
says he blackballed me but my agent says he’s full of shit.”
“No thanks.”
“Really? I’m offering you ground-floor access, my friend.”
Access to what doesn’t exist is access to nothing and I shake my head.
“Gonna stay here.”
“Well, ultimately, I suppose that’s best for both of us. Ray doesn’t want you
in L.A. and this way, well, hey, if Johnny Bates gets a third season, maybe we
shoot up here.”
I can’t think of anything to say that he won’t interpret as an insult. He stops
walking and he huffs and he puffs and he obviously misread my silence. We
should be walking, Mary Kay. Animals in these woods don’t stop to chat but
Oliver’s too fucking arrogant, human in the worst possible way, having just
killed a fellow man. “Listen,” he says. “You took a hit back there…” Ya think?
“But you gotta let that shit go, Goldberg. You’ve gotta see the error of your
ways.”
I will punch him. “The what?”
“Hear me out, my friend. You moved up here to get soft and you did get
soft…” I hate that he has a point but he does. I didn’t see it coming with RIP
Shortus. “It’s like my agent said about my draft…” Say the word agent one more
time, asshole. “There is such a thing as too soft, my friend. You can rock down to
Menopause Avenue and spend every day in a library… but humans are what they
are. And if you want something, you have to go hard, my friend. Always.”
I let Oliver high-five me and soon we’re in his Escalade. We’re on the way
back to civilization, passing the casino, the tiny bridge that moves us from the
mainland to Bainbridge. Oliver is on the phone with his agent’s assistant—I got
a new scene for the pilot—and my friend is a sicko, but he’s a sicko who saved my
life.
I thank him again—excessively, considering his ineptitude with the knife—
and he’s on his phone again, probably searching for some How to Make People
Think You Can Write article and he tells me that we did it. “We got out, my
friend. Love… I’m sorry about that…” No he isn’t. “But she can’t mess with your
head anymore and okay, so I no longer work for that family, but when my show
goes into production…” Oh Oliver, my friend, do you really think that’s gonna
happen? “Well, I’ll be making more money. In the meantime, though…”
My phone pings and it’s a link to a 1983 Smith Corona typewriter on 1st
Fucking Dibs. “I know,” he says. “But I gotta tell you, Joe. Ever since I got back
to writing, my mom’s doing better. She says she never wanted to say anything,
but she felt like I gave up and she feels stronger knowing that I’m back at it. We
gotta go hard, my friend. That’s the only way for the Poor Boys Club to
succeed.”
There’s nothing more annoying than good advice from someone who makes a
lot of bad decisions and we’re silent until Oliver drops me in my driveway.
Goodbye, Oliver, and hello to my empty houses. You and the Meerkat are still
not in your guesthouse and I take another shower—I still smell bunny blood—
and I put on my black cashmere sweater and I go into my kitchen and stand
before my chopping block of Rachael Rays. I choose a smaller knife, the
sharpest one I have, and I slip the knife into a book and Oliver is right, Mary
Kay.
It’s time to go hard.
47
I pop a Percocet—just one half this time—and Oliver has to win over so many
motherfuckers if he wants Johnny Bates to make it into American homes. He’s
my friend, in a way, and I really will cross my fingers for him, but I won’t hold
my breath. That business isn’t so different from dealing with the Quinns. He’s
gotta go hard when they tell him to go hard and then when they tell him it’s too
hard he’s gotta go soft and when they send him notes and tell him they have no
idea what he was thinking, that Johnny Bates is way too soft, he’s gotta suck it up
and tell them how smart they are. It’s not an easy way of life, and me, I only
have to kill it in one room, with one woman: you.
I catch a ferry to Seattle and I do what I need to do and I catch another ferry
back to Bainbridge and I go home. I get my car but I don’t park at the library—
too close and not close as in Closer—and I pull my hat down the way people do
sometimes, when you need to leave the house but you don’t fucking feel like
talking to anyone.
I’m too nervous, what with Rachael Ray up my sleeve, about to go where
she’s never gone before. Can I do this? Can I really do this?
I cut through the woods and I’m in the gardens by the library, crouching.
The windows need to be washed but I see you in there. You’re being you. I’m
nervous and I can’t risk you seeing me so I carry on through the woods, into the
back parking lot. I might vomit. The half a Percocet. The adrenaline. The Pain
Pong.
“Hi, Joe.” It’s the Meerkat and she’s on the move and she doesn’t stop to talk.
“Bye, Joe.”
She zooms by into the library and her Instagram said she was in Seattle and I
brought Rachael Ray here for us, for you and me and now she knows I’m here—
fuck—and will she tell you?
I duck my head and take the path down the steps into the garden and the
cupola is empty—thank God—and I move like a mechanic, like Mick Fucking
Jagger, maneuvering my broken body onto the ground, sliding my upper body
under the love seat. I wanted to do this the right way, with spray paint, but then
other people would see and the paint would bleed everywhere so it’s just not
realistic, is it? I take the knife out of my sleeve and I start to go to work. It’s a
slow go. I have empathy for Oliver because knives aren’t easy and at this rate I’m
never going to finish. I’ve never carved initials into a tree. I don’t even know if
you’ll be moved by this because yes, you love the graffiti at Fort Ward, but will
you love the fact that I carved our initials into the underbelly of a love seat
that’s property of the Bainbridge Public Library? Will you even be able to read
my shitty knife-writing?
“Whatcha doing?”
I flinch and drop my knife and the Meerkat needs to be less caffeinated. Less
nosy. “There’s a loose screw,” I say. “I’m just fixing it so nobody gets hurt. Can
you gimme a minute?”
“I can give you a million minutes,” she says and then she’s gone, clomp, clomp,
clomp.
I have to move fast because the Meerkat isn’t stupid and I am defacing public
property for my own private purposes and this is only part one of Operation Go
Hard and I have to make it to part two, the harder part of going hard.
The door opens. It’s you. “Okay,” you say. “Please don’t make me have to tell
you to stop vandalizing our property.”
The fucking Meerkat ratted me out and I’m not done yet and I had a plan. I
was gonna lay down a red blanket and play “One” by U2—our first fuck—and
you were gonna lie down and see our initials and life isn’t what happens when
you’re making plans. It’s what happens when you get a fucking head injury and
turn into a sappy dork.
You say my name again. “Joe, come on. Stop.”
I pocket my knife and bang my head as I worm my way out from under the
love seat. I am standing. Dizzy. My poor head. You just sigh. “I told you. There’s
nothing to talk about. Go home.”
“Wait.”
You don’t move. Do I get down on my knees? No, I don’t get down on my
knees. That’s not us. I sit on the bench. I don’t ask you to join me, but you do.
You put your hands on your elbows.
“You were right,” I say.
“About what?”
“You told me that it’s not in my nature to love.”
“I was mad and I told you I was sorry. Can we not do this?”
“Yes,” I say. “We can absolutely not do this. I can go home. I can put my
house on the market and I can move. And you can go back inside and pretend I
don’t exist.”
“Joe…”
“It’s not in my nature to love, Mary Kay. And the truth hurts. And you have
every reason to pretend I don’t exist because you’re absolutely right. My note to
you was generic and vague. I disappeared on you. And my letter wasn’t just
vague. It was bullshit because you can’t open up to someone without opening up
all the way and I didn’t do that. I got scared. I ran. No excuses.”
“Can I go now?”
“Did I walk out on you when you told me about Phil?”
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re married, too?”
“Believe me, Mary Kay, I thought about running scared. The man was a rock
star. I was intimidated…” I was never intimidated by that fucking rat but certain
situations call for certain logic and it’s working.
You’re listening. The windows of your Empathy Bordello are opening and
you’re letting me back in, a little.
“Mary Kay, I promise I’ll never chicken out on you again. I know I ran away.”
You say nothing and of course you say nothing. A liar can’t promise that he’ll
never lie again. You say you should probably go back in and I tell you to wait and
you throw up your hands. “I did wait. I waited all day for you to call.”
“I did call.”
“Not when you got off the plane.”
“I got mugged.”
“Oh, do you expect me to believe that you got mugged at the airport? What,
Joe? You got… shot at the Starbucks in LAX?”
“I flew into Burbank.”
“I don’t care. It’s too late.”
“Mary Kay, I told you. You’re right. I fucked up. And I don’t blame you for
icing me out that day and all the days after. You had every right to do that.”
“You should go.”
“No,” I say. “I have to tell you something about me.”
I have no plan and I’m not a pantser. I am a planner. But I’m not gonna win
you back with schmaltz—you want me to be vulnerable and you want some
fucking facts—and I have to tell you everything without telling you everything.
“Okay, look,” I begin. “I went to this school shrink when I was kid. She talked
about object permanence. How babies, if you show them an apple, they see the
apple. And if you cover the apple up with a box, they forget the apple was there.
They forget the apple exists because it doesn’t exist to them when they can’t see
it.”
“I’m familiar with the concept of object permanence.”
“I did lie to you, Mary Kay. On our first date… I glossed over my
relationships…” It’s true. “I wanted to come off like Mr. Independent. Mr.
Evolved…” God, it feels good to speak the truth. “But in reality, I moved here
because I let my ex walk all over me…” More like stampede. “I let her treat me
like a doormat… And I know it sounds macho and stupid but I thought it might
turn you off if I told you about what a sucker I’d been.”
“Joe…”
“See, I thought, here’s my fresh start. If I don’t tell you about Lauren…” I can’t
say Love’s real name because the story online is a lie—she didn’t die of cancer—
and I’m caught in her family’s web of lies. “I thought that if I didn’t tell you that
Lauren existed, I would feel like she never existed, like that guy I was when I was
with her, like he never existed either.”
You pick at the splintered wood. “So you ran back to your ex. And you
referred to it as a ‘family emergency,’ which tells me that she still very much
‘exists’ to you…”
“I know,” I say. “Fucking stupid. Inexcusable. And if I could go back to that
night, I would wake you up and tell you about Lauren. I would tell you that she
just called threatening to commit suicide. I would tell you that I hate myself for
not telling you sooner, for not blocking her number… but I would also tell you
that I never blocked her number because I have empathy for her. The woman
has no one.
“Except you…”
“Not anymore, Mary Kay.” RIP Love. “My empathy got the best of me, but I
cut the cord.”
“Well, that’s nifty.”
“Listen to me. I saw her…” Truth. “She was on the verge of taking her own
life…” More truth. “But now it’s over. She’s with her brother, the only person she
really ever loved, and I blocked her number. This is the end of the line for us.”
Whoever said that the truth just sounds different was right. You’re taking it
all in and I really won’t be hearing from RIP LoveSick anymore. She was never
the same after she lost her brother and if there’s a heaven, she’s with him, and if
not, well, she can’t hurt me anymore. More importantly, she can’t hurt my
fucking son.
You wave at my wounds. “Did her brother do this to you?”
“No,” I say, getting off on all this delicious, cathartic truth. “But I’m happy it
happened.”
You sigh and that was too Phil-ish and I correct. “I mean that it was a wake-
up call about what a hypocrite I’ve been, hiding the ugliness of what it was like
with Lauren, as if anyone can just ‘erase their past,’ sneaking out on you with
that stupid half-ass note. This gunshot, this beating, it was the universe telling
me that playing the hero for Lauren, swooping in to ‘save’ her… well, you can’t
call yourself a hero if you’re lying to someone you love. I won’t make that
mistake again, Mary Kay, I mean that, not with you, not with anyone.”
I take the ring out of my pocket. No YouTube-style show. No flowers. No
string section rounding the corner to serenade us with U2. I just put it on my
middle finger. “I got this on 1stdibs.”
“Oh,” you say. “Well, that’s nice.”
“It made me think about why I ran away, what rings are for people. Because
some of us… we don’t ever learn about object permanence, not really. I mean I
was with that shrink because I refused to leave my jacket and my backpack in
my locker because I thought if I couldn’t see them at all times… they’d be gone.”
“Are you asking me why I didn’t wear a ring when I was… when Phil was
alive?”
I close my hand around the ring. “Yes.”
“Well, I don’t have one. I lost it when I was pregnant.”
“How?”
“I lost it at the beach…” You scratch your elbows. “He was never home.
Anyway, he finished Moan and Groan, all these songs where he’s complaining
about me and the baby ruining his life… The album explodes and he was so
happy and I was so lonely. I was pregnant. I had homework. Everyone acted like
I should be different, Oh, you’re still getting your masters?You ball up your fists.
“Nomi was born. He bought me a new ring. I told him I lost that one, too. I was
lying. I just hid it in the attic. But I thought I was doing a nice thing. I thought
he might get a song out of it… two lost rings… Anyway, a couple years later,
Nomi must have been about three… Phil goes up to the attic. He found the ring,
the one I said I lost. He didn’t yell at me. He didn’t cry. He left it on my pillow
and I know what you mean. You’re just as evil as me.
“You’re not evil, Mary Kay.”
“I’m gonna be completely honest with you.”
Good. “Good.”
“I loved not telling you about Phil. I got off on the danger, the reality that
you might find out and hate me. It was a game and I finally got to be the
horrible woman that everyone around here secretly thought I was.”
“It’s not your fault that I was stupid. We’ve been through this. It’s on me,
too.”
You smirk and I see this new side of you. Haughty. All velvet ropes and
there’s no one in the room but you and I want in. “Joe” you simper. “You’re
earnest. And I’m… I’m not sure that I’m even a whole person. Sometimes I think
that everything I do and say… it’s all a reaction to what everyone thinks about
me… She thinks she’s hot stuff because of one album. Her poor husband was right. She
dragged him down just like he said she would! And she won’t even wear a ring. If she
had any dignity she’d leave him and maybe then he’d write good music. She acts like
she’s some kinda saint, keeping him on the wagon, but the man is miserable! And she
just walks around that library pretending to be some independent woman. What a joke.
What a lie. Who does she think she’s fooling? What is she looking for? When’s it ever
gonna be enough for her?”
“Now,” I say. “This is enough. You don’t scare me and with this ‘not a whole
person’ bullshit, either. Good try though. You almost had me… almost…”
It’s time to go hard but not too hard, soft but not too soft. I open my fist and
the ring is right there. You spent your entire adult life pulling Phil out of the
quicksand of stardom. I won’t ask you to marry me. You know what the ring
means. I go soft so that you can go hard—please, please, please—and finally, you
pick up the ring and slide it onto your finger and your face lights up and you are
the star, my star.
“Okay,” you say. “I get it now. You really do exist.”
“I really do exist. And I really did fuck up. But I learned my lesson, Mary
Kay, because we’re in the same boat. I never thought a woman like you existed
either.”
You look at me. “And I do.”
“Yes you do.”
When we kiss, the Meerkat hollers and we look into the library and she’s
there with a few of the Mothballs and a couple patrons and they couldn’t hear
us talking but they were watching. Everyone loves a proposal, even one as simple
and ass backwards as ours and you’re laughing. “Well, I guess I can’t take it off
now!”
I kiss your hand. “Never.”
The Meerkat bursts through the door and she hugs you, she hugs me, and
there is clapping, so much clapping, and a Mothball brings a bottle of fake
champagne outside and I should be in pain. I was shot in the head. Love tried to
kill me and Seamus tried to kill me but your hand is latched onto mine and you
are showing off your ring and the Meerkat is putting us on Instagram and this is
it, my happy fucking ending, my happy fucking beginning.
“Nomi,” you say. “What are you doing under there?”
She’s on her back, under the love seat, taking a picture of my vandalism.
“Reading,” she says. “I think he was trying to carve his initials.”
“I love you,” you say. “But don’t fuck with my library, okay?”
I went hard and you went hard and now we’re gonna go hard together. “It’s a
deal,” I say. “I will be good to you and your library, especially that big Red Bed
inside…” It was just dirty enough and you wink at me, my fox, my fianc-fucking-
ée.
48
It’s been four weeks and sixteen days and the love songs were telling the truth.
When it’s real, it’s real and this is real, Mary Kay. You never take off your ring
and commitment agrees with us. We worked hard to get here. We sacrificed a
lot. Your friend Shortus died in a hunting accident—well done, Oliver—and I
don’t care if you slept with him in his stupid cabin. He’s gone, I’m here, and we
ran in the 5 fucking K to honor that racist, diseased little man and then we took
a shower together and you didn’t fall off the edge of the sidewalk in despair.
You climb into bed with me and you hug me. “Promise me you won’t take up
hunting.”
It’s almost like you know that my life was plagued with violence for so long.
“I promise.”
Everything is different now. Fecal-Eyed Nancy put the moves on me when she
was drunk at the pub last week and I told you right away and you told me I did
the right thing and we had sex in the bathroom by Normal Norman Rockwell’s
mermaid in the cage, by the shipwrecked sailor and the naked woman of his
scurvy-induced fantasies. And then you decided that maybe you won’t start hot
yoga with Fecal Eyes after all and it’s easy to grow apart from people. The toast
at Blackbird is good but it isn’t something we can’t live without and it doesn’t
matter that Fecal Eyes didn’t actually put the moves on me. I don’t like her. I
don’t want her in our life and it’s just better to push her away because I
promised I wouldn’t kill anyone and I didn’t kill anyone for you and I want
things to stay that way. I want to honor my first vow to you, the one you don’t
even know about.
The Meerkat bursts into the room and groans. “Enough with Taylor Swift.”
You’re the one who keeps playing “Lover” all the time and I get where the
Meerkat is a little sick of it because love can be repugnant when it’s not yours,
especially when it involves the woman who birthed you. You do the right thing.
You tickle her. “Never,” you say, facetiously. And then you promise you’ll take
the song off the playlist after the big day and the Meerkat snaps her fingers. “But
it is the big day.”
Yes it is! You smile. “But the big day’s not over yet, honey.”
She groans, but she’s not really mad and we’re getting married in a matter of
hours. Yes! I’m a good stepfather and I kill the Taylor Swift and the Meerkat is
droll. “Thanks, Joe.”
“Anything for you, kiddo.”
It’s Saturday and there aren’t many Saturdays like this left. The Meerkat will
be away at college soon—take that, Ivan—and it’s the three of us now, we’re the
family boarding the ferry and there are no sharks in these waters. I don’t ignore
you the way your rat did and the Gilmore Girls found their Luke and we spend
the whole day in Seattle, roaming around looking at tchotchkes, tchotchkes we
don’t buy because I’m here to remind you that they’re tchotchkes we don’t need
and I love your friends who own the record store and they love me.
They found all the records I was looking for and that is my wedding gift to
you: a jukebox, the old-fashioned kind with actual records, the one that you told
me you always pictured in your Empathy Bordello. You’re right, Mary Kay. I do
remember everything, and I took a hit from Oliver—1st Fucking Dibs—but I do
have a nest egg and we are making plans for our bookshop, sending each other
links to potential locations on Zillow.
I still volunteer and you still work at the library and the summer days are
long, like days in a Sarah Jio book and sometimes it’s a shame that your Friends
weren’t good enough for us, because happiness is contagious. It would be nice if
RIP Melanda were here to envy us, if RIP Shortus were here to build us a love
seat, if your rat were a big enough man to sit in the audience and force a smile
when the love of his life chooses better.
Alas, we can’t control other people. We can only control ourselves.
We’re such a good fucking family that I want us to go on Family Feud because
we would win, even if it was just the three of us, because it was just the three of
us. You laughed when I said it last week—That’ll be the day—but when I went on
your computer and looked at your search results, there it was: How do you get on
Family Feud? I knew it. I knew that once I proposed we would all be in a better
place. We are on the roller coaster now and there is no jumping off the ride.
Our life is the photograph that rich dimwits pay for at the theme park because
their memories alone are inadequate. We took the leap of faith and the coaster
was slow to start—amusement parks are all aging and dangerous—but we took
our chances. We boarded. We strapped on our seatbelts. And now our hands are
in the air and we are coasting.
Our guesthouse is for guests—Ethan and Blythe can’t make it to the wedding
because Blythe caught a parasite from a piece of sushi—but there will be guests
eventually. I like it better this way. We are nesting and look what I did for you,
Mary Kay! You aren’t the town widow who got fucked over by her druggie
husband and her sleazy brother-in-law. You’re my fiancée. You stashed my
guitar in the closet—I don’t want to go down that road again, you know?—and I do
know. I’m not RIP Phil. I don’t want to be a rock star and it’s like you texted
your semi-friend Erin, who is vying for Melanda’s position in your life: I always
heard second marriages were like this. I know we’re not married yet but JESUS. Every
day I’m like oh. So THIS is how it can be. So yes. Bring New Guy to the party. Believe
in love!
I didn’t sneak into your phone or invade your privacy. You changed your
settings and when you get a text the words are right there because for the first
time in your adult life, you have nothing to hide from me, from RIP Phil, from
anyone. I only look at your back-and-forths when you leave your phone open on
the counter because you have to pee and a lot of people look in their spouses’
phones, Mary Kay. I’m sure you’d do it to me too if I were more like you. But I’m
me. And you’re you. And we’re not gonna be those unbearable in-your-face
assholes who create a Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Mary Kay Goldberg account. We’re not
in denial about our individuality. But in a good relationship, you respect your
partner’s needs. You’re a worrier so you don’t need to know that I just blew five
grand on a vintage tabletop Centipede videogame formerly owned by a fucking
Pizza Hut. You don’t need to know that Oliver still didn’t sell his show—issues
with Johnny Bates’s likability—but continues to peddle it around that vile no-
good city with his agent. To be me is to be aware of all the mugs of urine in the
world, in our house. I know where you keep your diary—up high in the closet
that’s yours now—but I haven’t opened it once and I dip my razor in the sudsy
sink and the shaving cream clings to the blade.
Perfect.
I pull my skin and the razor does what razors do, it removes unwanted tiny
hairs—I don’t want your face to burn when we get in bed together—and all is
right in this world, in this home, on this razor blade, and you knock on the
doorframe. “I’m just so fucking happy. Is this… Is this how it’s gonna be?”
I dip my razor in the suds and once again, perfection. “Yes,” I say.
You nod. You wear socks. And I tsk-tsk—my floors are hardwood, slippery—
and your floors were different and you can’t wear socks around this house and
walk safely and you are stubborn—socks are your tights in summer—and you
are always stumbling and sliding. I want to protect you. I nag you to wear shoes
or go barefoot but you think you’re Tom Cruise in Risky Business. You imitate
his famous sliding dance and I shake my head and tell you what I always tell you
when you walk around in socks, that life is risky business. “Young lady,” I say.
“You need to put on some shoes.”
You take a step closer and you are over it. “Are you almost ready?”
I like our nagging because it means we are a real family. We’re being
ourselves. You had PMS last week and I surprised you with O.B. tampons and
you laughed—Thanks… I think—and you ate the leftover pizza I was planning to
eat for breakfast and I was annoyed—I told you one pizza wasn’t enough for three
people, that’s TV bullshit when they do that—and you were annoyed—You try getting
PMS every month and see how you deal when your own body turns against you—and
the Meerkat was annoyed—Mom, can you please not talk about your period so much?
and it was fucking awesome! Because it means we’re like Seinfeld and
company on Festivus, we’re airing our grievances instead of letting them boil
inside of us. There are weeds in our garden and they complement the flowers
and that’s how I know this is real. The flowers and the weeds, I can’t tell them
apart, but at the end of the day, I love them all. We’re not afraid of Virginia
Woolf in this house. When we tousle it’s a fair fight. Clean.
You blush, horny like the fiancée that you are and you tell me that you’ll be
on the deck and I breathe you in and you kiss my cheek and shaving cream
covers your lips and I wish it was whipped cream. You giggle. Dirty. You reach
for me with your hand and the door is wide open but you are a fox. You like the
risk and this is who we are now. Lovers. You want my hand in your hair and I do
what you want and there is no reason for you to know about RIP Beck or RIP
Candace—your tongue grazes my shaft—and what we have is real. It’s now.
You stand. Dizzy. I zip up. Dizzy.
You are bashful, avoiding your own reflection in the mirror, as if what we
just did was wrong. You swat me with a washcloth—Bad Joe, Good Joe—and I
throw up my hands—Guilty. I tell you that you make me feel young and then I
take it back. “That was the wrong word,” I say. “You make me feel better than
young. You make me feel old. I always liked the song ‘Golden Years,’ and I know
we’re that old, but I get what Bowie meant in a way I never did before.”
You like that. And you laugh. “Fun fact,” you say. “When Phil proposed, I was
sleeping.”
I’m used to this by now. When I make a rock ‘n’ roll reference, you respond
by talking about your rock ‘n’ RIP husband. And it’s good, Mary Kay. It’s
healthy. You’re remembering all the little things that made him fallible because
nothing compares to me and I fucking love it when you see the light. I’m excited
for the rest of our lives and I grin. “No.”
“Oh yes,” you say. “He put the ring on my finger and left the house and it
took me a long time to notice it and he was so mad…”
I do not speak ill of the dead but wedding days are like this. You reflect. I
kiss your forehead. “I love you.”
You lean your head into my chest. “Yes, you most certainly do, Joe.”
And then you smack me on the ass and remind me that we have fifty people
waiting downstairs and I salute you. “Aye, aye, Hannibal.” And then you change
your mind and you close the door. “Or do you prefer Buster?”
I lock the door that you closed and I press my body into yours. I run my
hand down your back and I pull your panties off and I am on my knees and who
gives a shit about the fifty people outside when I am in here, Closer as in closest?
49
It’s a shame that RIP Melanda didn’t live to see this.
Our backyard wedding is just the sort of night she pictured for herself when
she read Sarah Jio’s Violets of March and your high school friends are irritating
and the Seattle freeze is on—one asshole showed up in a Sacriphil T-shirt, as if
Nomi needed that today—because this is our wedding, our celebration of our
love.
The Sacriph-asshole pats me on the back. “He’d want her to be happy,” he
says. “But ya know… it’s still weird for some of us.”
The asshole is drunk but you come to my rescue. “Paul,” you say. “You look
like you’re freezing. We put a pile of fleeces by the bar. Why don’t you grab
one?”
He gets the hint and you save this moment, you save me, you save everything.
You kiss me. “We did it.”
“Yes we did.”
You are my conspirator and you rub your nose into my nose. “And wasn’t I
right? Isn’t it kind of more fun this way?”
I tell you that you were right because you were right. We fucked up a little.
We didn’t get a marriage license yet, but you told me that you want us to make
it official in private, after all the pictures and the partying, because in the end,
it’s nobody’s business but ours, after all.
You squeeze my ass and whisper in my ear. “If Nancy tries anything funny, I
got your back.”
“Technically, you have my ass.”
You squeeze harder. “Semantics.”
And then you’re in circulation, as a bride must be, as loving and warm as you
are in the library, only this is our house, our life. Everything is in place now.
Brand-new Erin truly is the best replacement. She isn’t horny and snooty like
Fecal Eyes and she isn’t a toxic fossil from your past like Melanda. It’s sad but
ultimately good that RIP Melanda isn’t here to take pictures of you and put
hearts on the unflattering ones, to call out the music for being problematic
Well she was just seventeen—and there’s so much love in the air that she might
have gotten weak and wound up mercy-fucking RIP Shortus or Uncle Ivan, not
that he came. But you don’t miss him. You say you’ll never forgive him for
ignoring the invitation and if he were here, he’d fall off the wagon and start
recruiting Nomi’s new friends and that frustrated, fecal-eyed mommy into some
new fucking sex ring. I spin you around the tiny dance floor and you turn a little
sad as “Golden Years” ends but that’s the way of all songs, all weddings, and I
wonder what ever happened to Chet and Rose, the newlyweds in the woods
where RIP Beck went to sleep.
I kiss you gently. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m okay. It’ll pass. Just a little emotional right now.”
I kiss your hand. “I know.”
“It’s weird without my core people…” Rotten to the core, all of them. “And at
the same time, I’m remembering why I lost touch with half these people…” Atta
girl and I kiss you and we don’t need to start having game night as you’ve
threatened every now and then. “It’s strange,” you say. “But in a good way, you
know?”
Whitney Houston comes to our rescue and you want to dance and it’s not
easy to dance. The floor is small. My yard is small. Boring third-tier friends form
a messy circle around us. We are Chet and Rose and it’s us in the center. These
people aren’t our people, they’re warm bodies on a late summer night and none
of them will be popping by tomorrow—not even Brand-New Erin—and Nomi
taps your shoulder and we bring her in and we are that family now, that family
everyone else wishes they could be and then the song ends and we aren’t the
center anymore. A slower song begins, fucking reggae, somewhere between
dancing and not dancing, and it’s too crowded and people are drifting and the
three of us keep dancing and you ask Nomi if her friends are having a good time
and she shrugs and I tell her that her friends seem cool and she laughs. “Don’t
say cool. You sound lame.”
We have a family chuckle and it’s just as well because her friends don’t really
seem all that cool. They’re sulking down by the dock like Philistan fan girls who
don’t want to dance with a bunch of old people. But as we know, friends are
important, and Nomi finally got rid of the little round glasses. She’s swaying
hips I didn’t know were there and she won’t be a Columbine virgin forever and
my brain hot-wires. I picture my son years from now, a younger me, macking on
Nomi in a bar… but he’s too young for her now and he’ll be too young for her
then and we are okay. All of us.
The reggae fades into “Shout” and Fecal Eyes and women from your Book
Club are calling for you—Mary Kay, come do a shot—and it’s the part of the song
where you slowly get down and what a sight this is, middle-aged mountain bike
people trying to twist. We can have game night, fine, but we won’t be having
any fucking dance parties, that’s for sure.
Nomi loses her balance and grabs my shoulder. “So Melanda texted me
yesterday.”
Impossible. She’s dead and Shortus told the same fucking lie and I stumble
but I don’t grab the Meerkat’s shoulder. “Oh yeah? How is she?”
It’s the part of the song where we work our way back up and Nomi’s talking
about Melanda like she’s alive. This is my stepdaughter. This is a child—she’s
eighteen but she’s a young eighteen—and she grew up in a should-have-been-
broken home so I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s a liar. She lied for the same
reason that Shortus lied, because lies make us feel better about ourselves.
The Meerkat pulls a strand of hair off her face and builds a better world. She
tells me that Melanda is so much happier in Minneapolis than she ever was here.
“She’s still mad at my mom for not having her back…” In Nomi’s fantasy, Nomi
is the glue. The secret. The one with all the power. “But I get it and honestly, she
does too because I mean that kid was a kid, you know?”
I do know and I nod.
“Anyway, mostly she’s just really happy about how you helped me get back
on track with NYU and stuff.”
“Well that’s great,” I say and Billy Joel picked one hell of a time to start
singing about loving somebody just the way they are. I stuff my hands in my
pockets. I won’t slow-dance with my fucking stepdaughter. She wears a bra and
those father-daughter Facebook dances are perverse. That’s your daughter, you
shithead. Alas, Nomi’s father was dead when he was alive—the end of the summer,
the end of all your fun—and she puts her hands around my neck. She wants to
dance and this is wrong—eighteen is too close to seventeen—but she leaves me
no choice. I rest my hands on her hips and I hit bare skin, but if my hands go
lower, they’re on her ass, if they go higher, they’re on her chest. She looks up at
me and there is moonlight—Are people looking at us?—and she smiles. “I owe you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say and I wish Billy Joel would shut up and I wish you
would come back. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“No,” she says. “The only reason I get to go to New York is cuz you helped me
see that Ivan was a jerk.”
I lie to her and tell her that Ivan isn’t necessarily a bad guy, that good people
go through hard times and that life is long, that Ivan will go back to being good.
Her smile is too bright and we need to find this kid a boyfriend. Or a best
friend. These new Friends of hers are no good—two of them are pouring vodka
into red plastic cups—and Nomi looks into my eyes—no—and I search for you,
but you’re busy by the fire pit with your fucking Friends. The Meerkat has
fingers—who knew—and she runs the tips of those fingers through my hair. I
pull away. She claps her hands. She doubles over. She’s laughing at me—Omigod
you are so paranoid—and she’s teasing me—You really do watch too much of that
Woody Allen stuff—and then she turns serious because I am too serious. So I
muster a laugh. “Sorry.”
“You just had a bug in your hair. I was pulling it out.”
I scratch my head the way you do when someone reminds you that you have
one. “Thanks.”
“Don’t worry,” she says, stepping back, on her way to her bad-influence
friends. “I won’t tell my mom about your little freak-out. I’m not stupid.”
None of our wedding guests saw what happened and maybe that’s because
nothing happened. I fix a drink—I am of age—and I search the air around me
for bugs. Gnats. Fruit flies. Anything. I see nothing. And then you are here, by
my side, following my sight line into the abyss. “We really hit the jackpot, huh?
No rain.”
You make everything better and you stare at the stars above and you sigh. “I
saw you dancing with Nomi,” you say. “That really made me happy. That’s when
it all kind of hit me, Buster. We did it. We really did.”
We all know the rules. IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.
You saw us dancing and you saw nothing and this is the good part of my life so I
go with it, I go where you go because I can, because I have to. “Yep,” I say. “It
made me happy too.”
50
Better safe than sorry and I am playing Centipede, just like Oliver and Minka. I
play alone—you don’t know about my game—and I am winning. The goal is
simple: Do not be alone with Nomi. Kill that Centipede every time it appears
on-screen. Except in this game, I don’t kill her. It’s in her nature to want to be
with me and there are bugs, she might have been trying to take a bug out of my
hair. But you just never know, do you? And the Centipede isn’t evil and we’re all
just prone to root for the soldier, the player, because the Centipede is presented
as the enemy. I am like you—a future cofounder of the Empathy Bordello—and I
am able to see things from Nomi’s perspective. She lost her father. Her uncle’s a
motherfucker. Her fake uncle died in a hunting accident and proceeded to be
torn apart by wild animals. And now she has a stepfather. It’s confusing stuff
and the Centipede is on a mission to get close to me and it is my duty to do
what is best for the Centipede: to stay the fuck away from her.
This is no way to live, being endangered in my own house, but in four days
she goes to New York and that means no more fucking Centipede. At least, not
until the real Centipede arrives, the two-player tabletop I bought for us. You
walk into the kitchen and I pour coffee into your mug and you say you don’t
have time for that. You have to catch the ferry. Erin is meeting you in Seattle to
see a designer. I push the coffee across the table. “Oh come on,” I beckon. “You
can do that later. Stay home.”
You sip the coffee. “You are a very bad man, Joe.”
I smile. “Yes, I am.”
If Nomi didn’t live here—just four days and three nights to go—I would pull
your skirt off and bend you over the counter but Nomi does live here and she’s
here now, rummaging in the fridge for a Red Bull. You nag her about her
beverage choice—That will poison your brain—and she barks defensively—It’s no
different than coffee—and I play my videogame, casually moving my position so
that I am on the opposite side of the room from Nomi.
You don’t know about my Centipede score. You haven’t noticed a change in
my behavior since she touched my hair. But I am the top scorer in the game and
I have not been alone or within touching distance of your daughter once in the
past four days.
When you yawn and say you have to go to bed, I follow.
When the Centipede—not a Meerkat, not anymore—pops by the library and
sees me packing up and asks if I want to walk home, I tell her that I have to go
to Seattle to see about a book.
When I am outside flipping steaks on the grill—no more lamb shanks for us—
and you are inside chopping vegetables and the Centipede opens the door and
asks if I need help, I smile—polite—and tell her I’m all set.
The Meerkat has daddy issues and because I am such a good stepfather, I don’t
want her to find another bug in my hair. I don’t want her to beat herself up for
anything when she’s in New York, starting over.
You peck me on the cheek and Nomi is in this house and you are leaving this
house and I have to stop you.
“Wait,” I say. “You’re leaving now?”
Nomi laughs. “You guys are so gross.”
You tell me that you have to get the ferry and the Centipede hops up on the
counter and she is wearing shorts and her legs dangle and I tell you I want you
to stay and Nomi groans again. “I can’t take this anymore,” she says. “I’m going
to the beach with Anna and Jordan and please don’t bug me about dinner later!”
That’s what happens in videogames sometimes. The enemy appears on-screen
and you’re out of position, you can’t evade the bullets, but then it slips off-
screen and you worried for nothing. You feel my forehead. Such a mother. “Are
you okay? You look a little red.”
I pull you in because I can do that now that the Centipede is outside—
GAME OVER—stuffing a towel in her bag. “Bye, guys!” she calls from the
driveway.
“Come on,” I plead. “We have the whole house to ourselves. You can see the
dee ziner any old day.”
You kiss me but it’s a kiss goodbye. “Erin’s waiting for me, Buster. So come
on, lemme go. In four days, this is how it’ll be every day.”
“In four days a bomb might go off and we might all be dead.”
You sling your purse over your shoulder. “And I think I’m the paranoid one.”
I try once more. I put your hand on my dick. “Come on, Hannibal…”
Your eyes are two foxes, they have teeth, sharper than mine. “No,” you say.
“And honestly… can we cool it with the Hannibal stuff?”
That hurts my feelings but in any relationship, there is growth and I’m not a
fucking nickname person anyway. “Whatever you want, Mary Kay DiMarco.”
You walk to the door and blow me a kiss. “Be good.”
I blow you a kiss. “See you in twenty minutes when you change your mind?”
Your eyes land on the sofa and you fight a horny smile and you love me but
you leave me and I sit on our in-house Red Bed and I turn on the TV.
Everything is fine. I’m catching up on Succession—you were right, it is good, and
there’s a nickname that you do like: Ken Doll—but I can’t focus. I need to zone
out so I turn on Family Feud. I’m not paranoid, but this is a challenge for me.
Things are working out for the first time in my life and sometimes I think about
New York or I think about L.A. and I hear Aimee Mann in Magnolia warning me
that getting everything you want can be unbearable. I am so used to never
getting what I want that I don’t quite know how to sit on my sofa and be a basic
Bainbridge hubby in khaki shorts killing time while his almost-wife—it will be
courthouse official on 8/8, you like that date—searches for curtains and my
stepdaughter hits the beach with her friends.
The door opens and I turn off the TV. You knew I needed you today and
you’re here, kicking off your shoes in the foyer. “Did you miss me, Mary Kay
soon-to-be-Goldberg?”
I look up from the red pillow I just moved to make room for you and it isn’t
you.
It’s the Centipede and this is a new level in the game—a dangerous level—
and she pulls a can of spiked seltzer out of the fridge and she’s eighteen years old
and it’s 11:00 A.M. She closes the fridge with one hip and shakes the can before
she pops it. She giggles. “Finally, right? My God, I was going crazy.”
I clutch my pillow. My armor. “Nomi, you shouldn’t be drinking.”
She jumps on the couch and I get off the couch and she is the Centipede, on
her side now, legs for days and who knew she had legs and what is she doing?
She’s sipping her spiked soda—spikes on a dark road at night, spikes that flatten
tires—and she’s propping her head on a red pillow. “Whatever,” she says. “These
things have like no alcohol. Don’t worry. I won’t be drunk or anything.”
I hold my Red Bed red pillow and the Centipede isn’t moving with her body
but she is moving in other ways. Running her hand over her collarbone and the
collarbone isn’t yours but it is. It came from inside your body. “Joe,” she says.
“Relax. She’s gone.”
She takes a sip and fuck you, Woody Allen. You did this. You. She’s a virgin—
isn’t she?—she isn’t old enough to know what she wants but she says that I know
what she wants and she licks her lips. “Seriously. She and Erin… they live for
stuff like this, shopping for curtains.” She sighs.
“Nomi, you shouldn’t be drinking.”
“And you shouldn’t be getting married. Jesus, Joe. We were set.”
The Centipede broadsides me from afar and I lose a life and stutter. “There is
no we.”
She laughs and did she always laugh that way? “I get it,” she says. “You do
things the hard way. We were so close…” Close as in the Centipede is winning.
“Mom was all set to be a brother-fucker and go off with Ivan…” No you were
not. “But you go and bring him down…” No I didn’t. “And then you go hunting
with my ex-boyfriend… He told me he was gonna ‘teach you a lesson’ for trying
to steal me away, like it’s not my choice. Such a jerk.”
The game table flies into the air and I duck for cover. She said ex-boyfriend
and it was her in the woods with Seamus. Not you.
Nomi.
He wasn’t pining for you and he was a pedophile and he thought I was a
pedophile same way RIP Melanda thought I was a pedophile and I AM NOT A
PEDOPHILE. The Centipede isn’t alone anymore. There are bombs falling from
the top of the screen and my control panel is stuck—does she know about the
bunnies and the buckets of fucking blood?—and I want to punch the console
and scream. “You… and Seamus…?”
She shakes like her body is covered in ants and she screeches. “Don’t remind
me. I know. He wasn’t exactly smart. He barely read. But don’t be a dick about
it. I was young.”
“You are young.”
She blinks and I wish she still wore those unflattering little round glasses.
“He could be sweet, though, like driving to Seattle to pick me up from Peggy
and Don’s to take me to his cabin. I don’t think I would have gotten through
high school without those weekends.”
The cabin. The girls weren’t twenty-fucking-two like you said, Mary Kay.
The girls were Nomi and I beg her to stop and she sighs. “Don’t be that way, Joe.
Don’t be jealous. The cabin was freaking boring and it’s not like I was ever in love
with him.”
“Nomi, please. Stop it.”
“But kids here… they’re like kids everywhere. They suck. Seamus was just, I
mean one day I was bored hanging out by the creek near my old middle school
and… there he was.”
CrossFit is across the street from that fucking middle school and I snap. “He’s
a rapist.”
Now she sits up. “You stop it. Nobody raped me, Joe.”
“It’s called statutory rape. And it’s wrong.”
She crosses her arms. All one hundred of them. “Oh really, Mr. Morals? Mr.
Hiding in the woods watching me…
“I was not watching you.”
“Right,” she says. “You just happened to be there with all the time in the
world to take this long, leisurely walk to the grocery store with me…”
The screen turns from orange to green and I am dying. I did that. But I
didn’t. “Nomi, please, that’s not what that was about.”
“Now you’re gonna tell me that you didn’t push me to watch your favorite
movie…”
I hate that this is true—I did that, I pushed a teenage girl on Woody Fucking
Allen—and I am one soldier and she is a reptile on fire.
“Come on, you were worried that I was one of Melanda’s little pawns, so
freaking cute, you actually believed that I never saw a Woody Allen movie. I
mean, I live on a rock, but I don’t live under a rock. And I know when someone
is watching me.”
“I was not watching you.”
“Right,” she says. “Same way you didn’t literally go to my house in the middle
of the day when I was cutting school.”
“I was dropping off a book.”
It is true and it isn’t and the Centipede moves swiftly. “Nope,” she says. “You
were waiting for me. And you didn’t rat me out to my mom, which is how I
really knew we were in this for the long haul.”
“Nomi, I am sorry that you misinterpreted things but you are dead wrong.”
“One word,” she says. “Budussy.”
Budussy: the only word worse than Centipede, and I shoot her down. “No.”
“That whole time you helped me at the library you were making eyes at me
all nervous about getting caught and you keep looking to see if my mom
noticed. You were so cute, Joe. So cute.”
“Nomi, I wasn’t making eyes at you. I was making eye contact, and there is a
difference.”
“Aw, come on. You can be real with me now. Don’t fight it.”
“Nomi, I’m not fighting anything. You misread things.”
“Ooh, I thought of another one of our little ‘moments,’ that day you almost
ran away… I saw that box in your car, Joe. I knew you were gonna leave… But
then you saw me.” No. “And you were so cute, worried that I thought of you as
one of those old people in the library.” No. “I had no idea that you were so self-
conscious about your age and I promised to be more sensitive…” No. That is not
how that went down. “And you stayed.” She clutches her heart. “The absolute
sweetest.”
The bomb almost hit me that time and the game is rigged. “Nomi, this is all a
big misunderstanding and you’ve been through a lot and I’m really… sorry isn’t
the word… I’m horrified by what Seamus did to you but I am not like that.”
She shrugs. “He didn’t ‘do’ anything to me. I like older guys. You and Seamus
like younger girls. Almost all guys like younger girls. There’s nothing wrong
with that. That girl in New York you went out with… the dead one…”
This time the bomb hits me. The game is over. How the hell does she know
about that? I put another quarter in the machine in my mind and I will fucking
win. I tell Nomi that she has PTSD. She lost her father. She isn’t thinking
clearly. I remind her that I know where she’s coming from. I had a rough
childhood. I know how hard it is when your parents are fighting and you don’t
know who you can count on and I tell her that we can get her someone to talk
to, someone who can help her sort through this mess.
But she just smiles. A centipede with eyes. “You remind me of him, you
know.” Don’t say Woody Allen. “Dylan,” she says. “Dylan Klebold.” Dylan
Klebold is a mass murderer and I am your common-law husband—why didn’t
we go to the courthouse today? “You don’t just say things. You actually do things.
I mean the way you gave me that Bukowski…”
“Your mom gave you that.”
She smiles. “I know. Well done there.”
“Nomi, I am not Seamus.”
She looks at me and laughs. “Oh come on, Joe. The way you both hung
around my house after my dad died… I mean it was unbelievable. He wouldn’t
let me go and you wouldn’t just freaking go for it… and my mom…ugh…” You
resented your mother and she resents you and a nipple appears under her shirt.
“You don’t have to be jealous, Joe. I didn’t break it off the day I met you but I
mean… he’s gone. We’re here. Plus, honestly, when I started up with him, I was a
whole other person. I was young so it doesn’t even count.”
“Nomi, you are young,” I say again.
She grins. “I know.”
I missed it. The man was abusing your daughter and I hear Oliver in my
head. There is such a thing as too soft, my friend. Cedar Cove rotted my brain and
broke my radar and the Meerkat was never a fucking Meerkat and kids grow up
faster—fucking Instagram—and they know how to be four different people at
once and I took her little round glasses at face value. I thought she was innocent
and she was just playing innocent but she is innocent because HE WAS A
FUCKING PEDOPHILE. I said the word out loud—someone has to make this
right—and she throws a pillow at me. “Don’t use that word.”
“Nomi, that’s the only word there is right now.”
She’s quoting RIP Melanda—It’s not history. It’s HERstory—and she talks
about Seamus like he was her equal—He did the salmon egg thing too when he was a
kid and he could be sweet—and I tell her that’s impossible. “He was a grown man,
Nomi. He had all the power and what he did was wrong. He should be in
fucking jail.”
She snaps her fingers. That’s why Melanda hated you. I thought she was just
jealous as usual but you’re better than this. You can’t tell me how I feel. I know
you know that.”
I tell her she needs to stop and she balks as if we are lovers at war. “Don’t tell
me what I need, Mr. Woody Allen’s number one fan. Even Seamus knew better
than to talk down to me like that.”
Seamus was a pervert who tried to kill me and I am the adult. The stepfather.
“Nomi, what he did was wrong.”
She tells me that in a lot of cultures, girls her age have babies and that I don’t
get to sit here and take it all back when I’ve been leading her on since the day
we met. “It sucked when you disappeared. But I get it. I know it was too painful
for you with me so close but so far away…” No. “And it doesn’t matter because
you came back. You waited for me in the parking lot of the library and once
again, I told you to stay. I told you not to give up.” She looks at me and the
Centipede burns me alive. “And you didn’t give up,” she says. “Yeah, the
wedding was a little icky, but we both know that you’re not going through with
my mom’s little eight-eight plan. You’re not even really married.”
I am down to one life now and she laughs. “Stop being so freaked out. It’s me,
Joe. It’s me. But then she stops laughing, like the Centipede she’s become. “I
almost forgot,” she says. “You should have seen your face when I told you
Melanda texted me. Another classic.”
This is the part of the game where you kill the enemy and the screen changes
colors and the enemy is reborn stronger, faster. She says she’s not stupid. She
knows Melanda’s gone for good and I tell her it’s not like that. “You’ve been
through a lot and if your mother knew… if she knew that Seamus… that he
raped you.”
“Jesus, will you let it go? We broke up. It’s over. And then the idiot went and
got himself killed hunting. Honestly, it’s not the biggest surprise in the world…
He was so depressed about being dumped, he was in no state of mind to be off
in the woods, going off about what he was gonna do to you…”
The Centipede is staring at me, slowing down and daring me to move into
defensive mode. I am not stupid. I am quiet. Does she know what he did to me?
Does she know what Oliver did to him?
She crosses her arms again. “Don’t look at me like that. I know he was
spiraling. And he got so pissy about you…”
He didn’t get pissy. He tried to murder me. She’s on her feet—the Centipede
has feet—and she pulls at my pillow and I hold on to my pillow and she picks up
her bottomless can of spiked seltzer, a drink designed to appeal to children, to
make them feel older than they are.
I tell her she has the wrong idea and this game isn’t for me because even
when I win, I lose. The game gets harder. She appreciates me for holding out,
waiting for her to graduate, buying time for us and I can’t beat the Centipede,
can I? She takes the pillow out of my hands and hugs me and I am numb. Game
Over. I think fast. Hard.
Let her hug me. She won’t tell you about this. In four days, she’ll get on a
plane and go to New York and become obsessed with some Dr. Nicky professor
type and you don’t need to know about this Feud. Shortus is dead. Revenge is
impossible and Cedar Cove damaged your brain too. You didn’t see it either—you
were worried about your husband and there are only so many worries a heart
can bear—and I would never judge you for that. I have to let her say what she
needs to say so that she can move the fuck on, so that we can move the fuck on.
I grab her shoulders. We are close now, so close that I can actually see the
innocence in her eyes—she really does love me—and I have been where she is. I
have loved people who didn’t love me back and I tell her this will hurt—Jude
Law in Closer—and my voice is firm.
“I don’t love you, Nomi. And that’s okay because you don’t love me.”
Her teeth chatter inside of her mouth and her shoulders tremble beneath my
hands and the hardest thing about a Centipede is that a Centipede is always
moving. That’s the nightmare of the game. I stay with her as I fire my bullets
because I wish any woman who broke my heart had been so kind with me,
willing to be here for me as I realize that I am not loved. My hands are still on
her shoulders when you burst into the room. You kick off your shoes and slip
into your cozy socks. “All right,” you say. “You win, Buster. I’m home.”
51
It’s been a few minutes since you walked in on every mother’s worst nightmare
and the Centipede is curled up in a ball on the sofa and she is screaming—He
went after me—and you are screaming—I can’t take this—and you are in the game
too now but your control pad is compromised because this is too fucking much.
You defend me—Nomi, why are you saying this?—and you defend her—Joe, don’t
say anything right now—and I abide and the Centipede cries and you cross your
arms. “Okay,” you say. “Everyone needs to take it down a notch.”
The Centipede looks up at you like she wants to be hugged and you don’t
hug your daughter. You don’t run to the sofa and hold her. You don’t believe her
and you don’t know about Shortus and I can’t be the one to tell you that she’s
projecting and she’s in a bad place right now—I don’t love her and she knows it
—and she wants you to hate me and you don’t want to hate me and she picks up
her can of spiked seltzer but the well has finally run dry. She slams the can on
the table.
“Mom,” she says. “Can we please leave already?”
There is only one player in the game and it’s you. You fold your arms. “Nomi,
honey, please stop crying. We’re not leaving this house. Not like this.”
There’s a foolproof way to make anyone cry: Tell them to stop. She’s bawling
again now and I say your name and you growl at me—I said stay out of it—and
then you growl at her. “Why the hell are you doing this? Why do you make
things up?”
“Making this up? Mom, I forgot my phone and I came home and you saw him
trying to kiss me. Are you blind?”
Your heart is beating so fast that I can feel it in my heart and your nostrils
flare like RIP Melanda’s and you say it again. “Nomi, why are you making this
up?”
She rubs her eyes. Part Meerkat. Part Centipede. “Mom. He kissed me.”
“I didn’t!”
You don’t look at me. You look at her. “Nomi…”
“Wow,” she says. “You believe him. Nice, Mom. Real nice.”
You tell her that you believe you. You trust your gut and you don’t think I
would do that—I wouldn’t, but Seamus did, and your child needs you but you
don’t know what I know—and you are blaming the victim, warning her about
the danger of making false accusations and she springs off the sofa and the
Meerkat is possessed by a barefoot Centipede. She throws her empty can at the
wall and calls you a sicko because what kind of woman believes her fucking boy toy
over her daughter? You storm by me and I don’t exist. Not right now. This is your
Family Feud and I am powerless, locked out of the arcade, and you lash out at
her. “Do not speak to me like that. We have to be honest.”
“Oh?” she snaps. “You want me to be honest? Well, Mom, honestly I think
you’re a fucking sham. Most women believe all women and all you ever do is
make excuses for every single piece-of-shit guy you drag into my life.”
“Stop it, Nomi.”
“Why? He’s dead. Dad’s dead!”
This is why we didn’t see the Centipede inside the Meerkat, because the
Meerkat is like me, she stored all her pain deep inside where nobody could see
it. You do that for eighteen years, you get good at it and this chasm was always
here, it’s the reason RIP Phil was Philin’ the blues every night. The Meerkat hits
below the belt—You feel sorry for yourself because you’re a mother and for that you
can fuck off—and you hit back—You make it impossible to be your mother because
you talk to me about nothing—and I sit on the sofa and all I wanted to do was
make you happy and look at you now. You’re crying and she’s crying and you
tell her it’s not your fault that he’s dead and you are right but she blasts you—
Like hell it isn’t! You fucked his brother!—and you respond to the wrong part of
what she said—Don’t talk that way about me—and you don’t look at me because
you’re ashamed and there is no shame in our love and I want you to know it but
I can’t go where you go, into your nest with your daughter. I am scared for our
family and I’m supposed to be the father, the man of this house, but that’s a
patriarchal thought and RIP Melanda would be right to tell me that it’s not
about me.
It isn’t. I moved here to be good. I was good. I didn’t kill your cheating
husband. I didn’t kill your lying best friend and I didn’t kill Seamus, the rapist.
But I did make a mistake. I wanted to believe that everyone is like us, good, and
in that way, I was naïve. You were too, Mary Kay. Your daughter says that you
ruined her life and that makes you cry and I can’t hold you, I can’t go to you and
you blow your nose on your sleeve and you won’t allow yourself to look at me,
to take the love that you so desperately need. Nomi is crying too.
“Nomi,” you say. “Why do you… why do you hate me so much?”
You are mother and daughter. You stop crying and so she stops crying and I
remain where I am, wishing I had turned off Family Feud instead of muting it
when I heard you come in.
She picks at the hem of her little shirt. “Well, you don’t care about me.”
“Honey, how can you say that? You’re all I care about. I love you. I see you.”
The Meerkat is so focused on you that she doesn’t point at me to say that
you’re protecting me and this is good, I hope. This is healing. “You don’t see me.
You’re blind.”
“Nomi.”
“What do you think I was doing all the time?”
“All the time… When do you mean? What do you mean?”
I remember a line from Veep, when the tall guy running for president gets his
followers to chant: When are you from? When are you from? I fight tears—it’s not
my place to cry, that’s the last thing you need—and the Veep man was right. We
don’t come from places. We come from time. From traumatic moments that
cannot be undone.
“Mom,” she says. “Why do you think I got all those UTIs?”
“Nomi, no.”
“Mom,” she says. “I read Columbine for you. I thought eventually you would
force me to go to some shrink… and maybe if I talked to some shrink…”
“No.”
“He told me that you knew. He said moms know it all. And you didn’t.”
You clamp your hands over your ears like a child and I know it hurts. That
bastard raped your daughter and you cry as if you are the one who got hurt
because you hurt right now but she wants you to let her cry and she’s mad at you
for that, screaming that it was your fault, that you let Uncle Seamus into your
house, that you missed every sign that a good mother would see. I want to tell
her to stop but how do you tell a teenage girl to stop talking when she’s saying
what she needs to say?
She slaps you across the face and you hold your cheek in your hand and that
was too much but at the same time the fucking two of you need to learn once
and for all that life is what happens right now, not what happened years ago and
cannot be undone.
I say her name, like a stepfather. “Nomi.”
She stops moving and Centipedes don’t do that. They don’t stop. You tell her
to go downstairs where the two of you can talk in private and you think I don’t
love you anymore and it’s the opposite, Mary Kay. I never loved you more. This
is it, this is our Empathy Bordello and it’s one thing to dream about it but it’s
another thing to live in it.
And you can’t do it right now. I feel it slipping away—New York in
November, Thanksgiving—and I don’t know how to grab it because you don’t
know that I know about New York in November, Thanksgiving. You rub your
face—it stings where she hit you—and she pats her hand—it too stings—but you
didn’t like that and you huff. “So that it, then, huh? You blame me for
everything, but I got news, honey…” Don’t do it, Mary Kay. “The one you should
blame for this whole fucking mess is your father.”
The Centipede is breathing fire. “Stop it, Mom. Stop it.”
“He was supposed to protect you.”
“I said stop it.”
“Nomi, do you know why your Auntie Melanda really moved? Do you?”
No, Mary Kay. Don’t go there. She thinks Melanda loves her deep down and
kids need that and do I barge in? Am I allowed? You cluck. “Well, I’m done
protecting your rock ’n’ roll father who never did anything wrong and your
perfect little miss feminist aunt.”
No, Mary Kay. They’re gone. You know you should let them rest in peace but
you feel so guilty about missing what happened with Seamus and you want her
to feel sorry for you. I know this game, I do.
“Well,” you say. “At some point, we all learn that our parents are flawed.
Your auntie Melanda was having an affair with your father, okay? Your father
was sleeping with my best friend. So before you go putting them both on
pedestals… well, that’s what your beloved father and your beloved aunt did to
me.”
She says nothing. You say nothing. You know you made a mistake and you
are better than this, smarter than this, and I know that being a mother is the
hardest job in the world—RIP Love quit too—but the Meerkat didn’t need that
right now and you’re about to apologize—I see it your eyes—but she throws a
book at you. A Murakami and you swerve and the book hits the wall and she
screams. “I am the child, Mom. Me.
You make earmuffs again and my mother did that too when she was in the
weeds, when she got home from work and I was on the floor watching TV and I
would look up and say hi and she would wave, no eye contact, I’m beat, Joe. I’m
beat.
I know where you are. I see you in your mind, kicking yourself. You never
ripped up Columbine and dragged her to a therapist and you made nice to
Seamus and this is why you cry. The guilt. You want the Meerkat to take care of
you and she wants you to take care of her and you’re crying, she’s crying, and
you both cry like sharks inside of sharks, deprived of fresh air, freedom. You put
your hands on Nomi’s shoulders and she leans her head into yours and your
foreheads are touching. “Nomi, honey, don’t worry. I’m not mad at you.”
That was the wrong thing to say and I know it and Nomi knows it and she
grabs your shoulders and my floors are hardwood. Shiny. You twist like
spaghetti and she hurls you at the wall and your foot slips—socks—and I’m too
slow. I’m too late. You tumble down the stairs and the Meerkat screams and I
freeze up inside, outside.
I picture the police report that’s coming.
Murder Weapon: Socks.
No. There is no murder and you are. Not. Dead. Time is slow and fast and
fast and slow and Nomi is still screaming and of course she is screaming. She
came home to find her father dead on the floor and now her mother is out cold
—Are you dead? You can’t be dead—and Nomi shrieks—Mommy!—and it’s
unnatural for a child to see one parent out cold on the floor, let alone two. Your
body is in our basement—no, you’re not a body, you’re a woman, my woman,
and I failed to protect you and my heart is in flames and you’re the love of my
life and you’re the love of our life and Nomi clamps her hands on the banisters.
She’s on her way down the stairs but every step is ten miles long and why are
there so many fucking steps?
She stops on the second-to-last step. “She’s not moving.”
I want to rip Nomi’s heart out of her chest—this is too much for her, it is—
and I want to rip mine out too—this is too much for me, it is.
She takes one step closer and stands over you. She’s afraid to touch you.
Afraid to feel your hand for a pulse. “Omigod,” she says, and she is wailing and I
know that kind of warbling sound. She thinks she killed you. She thinks the
pain is going to kill her and she thinks there is less love for her in this world
than there was forty seconds ago.
I lean over your body and hold your wrist in my hand. Your heart is beating.
“Nomi,” I say. “She’s alive.”
I take a deep breath, an end-of-the-book kind of breath, the last-book-the-
author-wrote-before-she-died kind of breath. “I’m calling 911.”
Nomi nods. But she can’t speak. Not right now. She’s a Meerkat again,
trembling and scared. The operator picks up and asks me about my emergency
and Nomi screams—I don’t think she’s breathing anymore!—and the operator is
sending an ambulance and they will save you, Mary Kay. They have to save you.
Not just for me, not just for you, but for Nomi.
She thinks this is her fault and you have to survive so that you can wake up
and tell her what she needs to hear, that this is not her fault. You try to love.
You try to be good. But ultimately, you wear socks on hardwood floors and Ivan
was right. We deserve better, all three of us. Your lips move and Nomi’s
desperation transforms into hope and she feels the pulse on your wrist and
looks up at me. “She’s alive.”
I stay on the phone—I am the adult—and I give my address—our address—
and I follow their orders—don’t move her—and I say all the right things to your
daughter—It’s okay, Nomi, she’s gonna be okay—and I hold your hand and whisper
all the right things to you as well. You are lost at sea—See the boats go sailing—
and my voice is your lighthouse. But I can’t say everything I want to say and I
can’t give you my full, undivided attention. Your Meerkat is too close.
It’s not what Nomi said—She’s alive—it’s what she didn’t say—Thank God she’s
alive—and was she… did she want you to be gone? Once I saw her push Luscious
off an end table. He landed on his feet but you…
I know, Mary Kay. This is no time for doubts. When you wake up—and you
will wake up—it’s gonna be you and me against the world. I promise. Your
eyelids flutter, I think, I hope—I wish we were alone—and I stroke your hair
and say it all out loud. “I love you, Mary Kay. You fell, I know, but now you’re
gonna get better. I’m gonna take care of you every day, I promise. You got me,
you’re my love. I’m here.”
The Meerkat is a Centipede. Quiet.
Epilogue
I left America. I had to. How much tragedy can a person bear? Okay, so I didn’t
cross the border, but my new home feels like another country. I live in Florida
now, smack dab in the center, close to the Kingdom, yeah, but I’m not close as
in Closer. I can pretend it doesn’t exist. I am alone. Safe. And I get it now. I’m
better off on the wrong side of the tracks. You were special, Mary Kay. You saw
something in me. But in the end, you turned out to be like my past coastal elite
loves, too tangled up in your blue roots to pave a new road with me. No more
hackneyed American dreams of a love that conquers all for this Florida man.
The shop is closed, as they say, and I turn on the lights in the Empathy
Bordello. It’s too dark and it’s too bright and I’m trying to move on. Last night I
watched a documentary about RIP Sam Cooke—he gets me—and I wanted to
know more about his music but it was mostly just speculation about his murder,
as if that’s all that matters. I am so sick of this obsession with death, Mary Kay.
What about what we do with our lives? Licious meows—his brothers are back
on Bainbridge—and you were right. He is the best cat, a baffled king on a
perpetual victory march, as if he always just composed “Hallelujah” and if you
were here, you would say that every suffix needs a prefix and I miss you, Mary
Kay.
I do.
I wanted to build a life with you and I did everything right. I was a good
man. I volunteered at the library. I opened my heart to you and I believed that
we could be happy in Cedar Cove. But, like so many Sassy American women who
trust their feelings, you spoke your truth and got thrown down the stairs. My
heart is broken. Permanently.
I can’t talk to you so I play a Sam Cooke song, the one where he’s sad about a
woman who left him. She broke his heart—she stayed out, she stayed out all night
—and he begs her to come home. He offers his forgiveness. You can do that
when the person you love is alive. You got pushed. Life does that to us. But you
lost your footing and fell down the stairs because you were wearing socks—I
warned you—and now you’re in a coma and you can’t burst into the Bordello to
tell me you regret leaving, leaving me behind. You’re like every woman I ever
loved. You didn’t walk away. You didn’t stay out all night. You left the fucking
planet.
You wanted this Bordello before you ever met me and I wanted us to have
Christmas together and leave the lights up all year and now you can’t even see
our jukebox. You can’t do the most important thing we do as people: evolve.
Apologize to your child for being human, for being a mother, for letting
empathy make you go blind.
I look at my phone just to make sure it’s real and it is: They’re pulling the plug
tomorrow. Thought you should know.
Nomi didn’t even call to tell me about you—she texted—and I flip the switch
on the pink neon Open sign in my bookstore, where I serve Cocktails & Dreams
alone. You didn’t help me build the Bordello and I can’t blame Nomi for being
cold and I know she’ll be fine in the long run. She’s not one for empathy—I still
see her hovering over you, I still hear those words, she’s alive—and it’s not her
fault, Mary Kay. She’s moving on with her life, studying our fucked-up
environment at NYU and young, wounded female victims turned sociopaths
thrive in New York City and I should know.
I’ve been hurt by more than a few of them.
I try to stay upbeat. There are people out there who do love me. Ethan might
visit—but he would bring Blythe—and here I go again, replaying it all in my
head. I loved you like no other. The EMTs arrived and they gave me hope. The
United States Injustice System cooperated this time around—cause of injury:
accident—and there was no biased “investigation,” no online crazies trying to
blame me for your fall. I tried to be the guy with a girlfriend in a coma—we have
that book in stock at the Bordello—and I was dutiful. I was there. But every
time I went to get a soda I came back to find one of your Friends in my chair by
your bed. Erin disappeared and Fecal Eyes swept in with her multigenerational
family of lookie-loos and I know you wouldn’t want me sitting there with that
woman who brought out the worst in us.
I loved you. But my love wasn’t enough to save you. Now you sleep in a
mechanical bed while a machine does all the heavy lifting. I was the man of your
dreams—I didn’t think someone like you existed—and you always wanted to dance
with somebody (who loves you). And I did love you and we did dance. But from
the moment we met, we were stuck in the middle of the circle. Your Friends and
family were holding us hostage every step of the way because they didn’t want
you to be happy. And look how that worked out for them.
Your best friend Melanda is watching movies at Fort Ward.
Your husband Phil is snorting heroin in heaven.
Your brother-in-law Ivan is blogging about his new gambling addiction.
Your buddy Shortus is in hell doing CrossFit and your daughter Nomi is
alive but motherless.
I play our Lemonheads song and I can’t believe I’ll never see you again and I
wonder what you would think of the tabletop Centipede game by the back wall
of the Bordello. But I’ll never know, will I?
Acid shoots through my esophagus, all that leftover love with no place to go.
I lug a barrel of empty bottles out back into the dumpster, where the air is
thick as bread and Florida makes you believe in the ether, the unknown.
Sometimes I get paranoid. I picture you haunting me from within like a ghost I
can’t escape, the shark inside my shark.
But there’s no such fucking thing as ghosts. I’m getting older and you’re not
and it will take some time to adjust to this living arrangement, the one where
you’re dead and I’m turning on the TV because the music hurts but the news
helps.
Naked Ocala woman urinates on customers at Popeyes
Broward County husband tells police: “My wife called my girlfriend a whore! It was
self-defense!”
Father and son arrested for selling meth at school bake sale
And then an ad for a new show on Fox: Johnny Bates: The Man You Hate to
Love
After you fell down the stairs and our family splintered, I thought about
going to Ray, trying to get my son back. But I was right about Ray. He has
cancer. And if there’s one thing I learned from my time with you, it’s that
Dottie has enough on her plate right now. She’s taking care of my son. She
opened an Instagram account and I followed her and she followed me right back
and sent me one important message: Ssssshh.
She doesn’t post as much as Love did, but it helps to have an online family
museum and I’m happy my son has more privacy now. I also have a Google alert
for “Ray Quinn” and “obituary,” and that’s a thing that keeps me going.
The door of the Empathy Bordello Bar & Bookstore opens and it’s only 11:32 and
we’re usually dead until noon—even in these parts, people are shy about
morning juice—and I have a customer. She’s not a person to me yet. She’s a blur
in the doorway and she holds the door open with her hip. She’s sending
someone a text and I can’t see her face in the white light. The AC is on and the
cool air is pouring out, driving our planet into despair. If I ask her to close the
door, I am rude because she’s talking to someone—her boyfriend?—and if I let
her stay there like that, I am complicit in the destruction of this planet, of my
heart.
She moves her hip and the door closes and we’re alone in the dark that’s not
as dark as it seems. My eyes still can’t get there and I’m blinking, squinting, as if
your eyes cover my eyes, warping my vision. I want to see this woman—I am
alive—and I don’t want to see this woman—They all leave me, they leave me
behind—but it doesn’t matter what I want. Eventually, my muscles adjust—the
holes in our faces have free will—and like it or not, I see the world clearly, the
woman who just sat down at the bar in my Bordello. She says hello and I say
hello and it defies all logic—I lost everyone I ever loved, everyone—but
somehow my heart is intact. It ticks madly, just like hers.
Acknowledgments
A lot of people helped me put this book in your hands.
My editor, Kara Cesare, responds to my emails, my anxieties as well as my
fears. I am so lucky to have Kara on my side, a psychic book friend who
challenges me and nudges me and knows what I’m trying to say. I am also
grateful for the wisdom and whip-smarts of Josh Bank and Lanie Davis. Thanks
for pushing me onto a plane! I’m constantly happy to have the support of Les
Morgenstern and Romy Golan. My attorney, Logan Clare, is both hilarious and
helpful. I love being a member of the Random House family because of so many
warm and compassionate people: Avideh Bashirrad, Andy Ward, Michelle
Jasmine, and Jesse Shuman, among others. And I thank Claudia Ballard and her
team at WME for their enduring belief in my work, plus all those gorgeous
foreign editions.
A lot’s changed since I wrote that first draft of You in 2013. (I think it’s
officially clear that Penn Badgley was the right one to play Joe onscreen.) One
way in which I don’t change is that I still get butterflies when I realize that my
imaginary “friend” Joe exists in a real, meaningful way for so many people. Case
in point: Natalia Niehaus, a Bainbridge-based fan of You Netflix who acted as
my Bainbridge tour guide and was excited about Joe’s new home. I put my
hands together for the people who read my books and hang out in the Cage, in
the Everythingship squad, and for all those who spread the word about books—
I’m looking at you, Mother Horror—because word of mouth, whether written
or spoken, is a special thing, an author’s dream.
I don’t just bug my editors with late-night angsty emails about Joe. I treasure
my friends and family, the ones who deal with my incessant screenshots of this
page and nerves about that page and are understanding when I disappear. They
make me laugh and they make me feel like everything is going to be okay, even
when it’s July 8, 2020, which it is right now and… well, if you’re reading this in
2021 or 2061, I hope our world is getting better and doing better.
Love you, Mom, Alex, Beth, Jonathan, Joshua. XOXO
More from the Author
Providence Hidden Bodies
You
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CAROLINE KEPNES is the author of You, Hidden Bodies, Providence, and numerous
short stories. Her work has been translated into a multitude of languages and
inspired a television series adaptation of You, currently on Netflix. Kepnes
graduated from Brown University and previously worked as a pop culture
journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer for 7th Heaven and The Secret
Life of the American Teenager. She grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and now
lives in Los Angeles.
carolinekepnes.com
Facebook.com/CarolineKepnes
Twitter: @CarolineKepnes
Instagram: @carolinekepnes
www.SimonandSchuster.co.uk/Authors/Caroline-Kepnes
ALSO BY CAROLINE KEPNES
You
Hidden Bodies
Providence
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First published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random
House LLC, New York, 2021
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2021
Copyright © Caroline Kepnes, 2020
The right of Caroline Kepnes to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4711-9188-6
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-9189-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-9190-9
Audio ISBN: 978-1-4711-9192-3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is
entirely coincidental.